Wanderings Among South Sea Savages

H. Wilfrid Walker

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Title: Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines

Author: H. Wilfrid Walker

March, 2001 [Etext #2564]

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Wanderings Among

South Sea Savages

And in Borneo and the Philippines

by H. Wilfrid Walker

Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society

To

My brother CharlesThis record of my wanderingsin which he took so deep an interest,is affectionately dedicated.

Preface

In a book of this kind it is often the custom to begin by makingapologies. In my case I feel it to be a sheer necessity. In the firstplace what is here printed is for the greater part copied word forword from private letters that I wrote in very simple language inDayak or Negrito huts, or in the lonely depths of tropical forests, inthe far-off islands of the Southern Seas. I purposely made my lettershome as concise as possible, so that they could be easily read, and inconsequence have left out much that might have been interesting. It isalmost unnecessary to mention that when I wrote these letters I hadno thought whatever of writing a book. If I had thought of doing so,I might have mentioned more about the customs, ornaments and weapons ofthe natives and have written about several other subjects in greaterdetail. As it is, a cursory glance will show that this book has notthe slightest pretence of being "scientific." Far from its beingso, I have simply related a few of the more interesting incidents,such as would give a GENERAL IMPRESSION of my life among savages,during my wanderings in many parts of the world, extending overnearly a score of years. I should like to have written more aboutmy wanderings in North Borneo, as well as in Samoa and Celebes andvarious other countries, but the size of the book precludes this. Myexcuse for publishing this book is that certain of my relativeshave begged me to do so. Though I was for the greater part of thetime adding to my own collections of birds and butterflies, I haverefrained as much as possible from writing on these subjects forfear that they might prove tedious to the general reader. I havealso touched but lightly on the general customs of the people, asthis book is not for the naturalist or ethnologist, nor have I madeany special study of the languages concerned, but have simply jotteddown the native words here used exactly as I heard them. As regardsthe photographs, some of them were taken by myself while others weregiven me by friends whom I cannot now trace. In a few cases I haveno note from whom they were got, though I feel sure they were notfrom anyone who would object to their publication. In particular,I may mention Messrs. G. R. Lambert, Singapore; John Waters, Suva,Fiji; Kerry & Co., Sydney; and G. O. Manning, New Guinea. To theseand all others who have helped me I now tender my heartiest thanks. Ihave met with so much help and kindness during my wanderings from

Government officials and others that if I were here to mention all,the list would be a large one. I shall therefore have to be contentwith only mentioning the principal names of those in the countriesI have here written about.

In Fiji: -- Messrs. Sutherland, John Waters, and McOwan.

In New Guinea: -- Sir Francis Winter, Mr. C. A. W. Monckton, R.M., TheHon. A. Musgrave, Capt. Barton, Mr. Guy O. Manning, and Dr. Vaughan.

In the Philippines: -- Governor Taft, afterwards President of theUnited States, and Mr. G. d'E. Browne.

In British North Borneo: -- Messrs. H. Walker, Richardson, PaulBrietag, F. Durege, J. H. Molyneux, and Dr. Davies.

In Sarawak: -- H.H. The Rajah, Sir Charles Brooke, Sir PercyCunninghame, Dr. Hose, Archdeacon Sharpe, Mr. R. Shelford, and theofficials of The Borneo Company, Ltd.

To all of these and many others in other countries I take thisopportunity of publicly tendering my cordial thanks for their unfailingkindness and hospitality to a wanderer in strange lands.

H. Wilfrid Walker.

List of Illustrations

FRONTISPIECE -- Belles of Papua.A Chief's Daughter and a Daughter of the PeopleA "Meke-Meke," or Fijian Girls' DanceInterior of a large Fijian HutA Fijian Mountaineer's HouseAt the Door of a Fijian HouseA Fijian GirlSpearing Fish in FijiA Fijian Fisher GirlA Posed Picture of an old-time Cannibal Feast in FijiMaking Fire by Wood FrictionAn Old ex-CannibalA Fijian War-DanceAdi Cakobau (pronounced "Andi Thakombau"), the highest Princess inFiji, at her house at NavusoA Filipino DwellingA Village Street in the PhilippinesA River Scene in the PhilippinesA Negrito FamilyNegrito Girls (showing Shaved Head at back)A Negrito ShootingTree Climbing by NegritosA Negrito DanceArigita and his WifeThree Cape Nelson Kaili-Kailis in War AttireKaili-Kaili House on the edge of a Precipice"A Great Joke"A Ghastly Relic

Cannibal TrophiesA Woman and her BabyA Papuan GirlThe Author with Kaili-Kaili FollowersWives of Native Armed PoliceA Papuan DamselBusimaiwa, the great Mambare Chief, with his Wife and Son (in thePolice)A Haunt of the Bird of ParadiseThe Author starting on an ExpeditionA New Guinea River ScenePapuan Tree-HousesA Village of the Agai AmbuH. W. Walker, L. Dyke-Acland, and C. A. W. MoncktonView of Kuching from the Rajah's GardenDayaks and CanoesDayak in War-CoatDayak Women and Children on the Platform outside a long HouseDayaks Catching FishA Dayak Woman with Mourning Ornaments round waistOn a Tobacco EstateOn a Bornean River

Life in the Home of a Fijian Prince.

CHAPTER 1

Life in the Home of a Fijian Prince.

Journey to Taviuni -- Samoan Songs -- Whistling for the Wind --Landing on Koro -- Nabuna -- Samoans and Fijians Compared -- FijianDances and Angona Drinking -- A Hurricane in the Southern Seas --Arrival at Taviuni -- First Impressions of Ratu Lala's Establishment --Character of Ratu Lala -- Prohibition of Cricket -- Ratu Lala Offended-- The Prince's Musical Box.

Among all my wanderings in Fiji I think I may safely say that mytwo months' stay with Ratu (Prince) Lala, on the island of Taviuni,ranks highest both for interest and enjoyment. As I look back on mylife with this great Fijian prince and his people, it all somehowseems unreal and an existence far apart from the commonplace life ofcivilization. When I was in Suva (the capital) the colonial secretarygave me a letter of introduction to Ratu Lala, and so one morning Isailed from Suva on an Australian steamer, taking with me my jungleoutfit and a case of whisky, the latter a present for the Prince, --and a more acceptable present one could not have given him.

After a smooth passage we arrived the same evening at Levuka, on theisland of Ovalau. After a stay of a day here, I sailed in a smallschooner which carried copra from several of the Outlying islandsto Levuka. Her name was the LURLINE, and her captain was a Samoan,

whilst his crew was made up of two Samoans and four Fijians. Thecaptain seemed to enjoy yelling at his men in the Fijian language,with a strong flavouring of English "swear words," and spoke aboutthe Fijians in terms of utter contempt, calling them "d -- --d cannibals." The cabin wag a small one with only two bunks, andswarmed with green beetles and cockroaches. Our meals were all takentogether on deck, and consisted of yams, ship's biscuit and salt junk.

We had a grand breeze to start with, but toward evening it died downand we lay becalmed. All hands being idle, the Samoans spent the timein singing the catchy songs of Samoa, most of which I was familiar withfrom my long stay in those islands, and their delight was great whenI joined in. About midnight a large whale floated calmly alongside,not forty yards from our little schooner, and we trembled to think whatwould happen if it was at all inclined to be playful. We whistled allthe next day for a breeze, but our efforts were not a success untiltoward evening, when we were rewarded in a very liberal manner, andarrived after dark at the village of Cawa Lailai,[1] on the island ofKoro. On our landing quite a crowd of wild-looking men and women, allclad only in sulus, met us on the beach. Although it is a large island,there is only one white man on it, and he far away from here, so nodoubt I was an interesting object. I put up at the hut of the "Buli"or village chief, and after eating a dish of smoking yams, I was soonasleep, in spite of the mosquitoes. It dawned a lovely morning and Iwas soon afoot to view my surroundings. It was a beautiful village,surrounded by pretty woods on all sides, and I saw and heard plentyof noisy crimson and green parrots everywhere. I also learnt thata few days previously there had been a wholesale marriage ceremony,when nearly all the young men and women had been joined in matrimony.

Taking a guide with me, I walked across the island till I came tothe village of Nabuna,[2] on the other coast, the LURLINE meanwhilesailing around the island. It was a hard walk, up steep hills and downnarrow gorges, and then latterly along the coast beneath the shadeof the coconuts. Fijian bridges are bad things to cross, being longtrunks of trees smoothed off on the surface and sometimes very narrow,and I generally had to negotiate them by sitting astride and workingmyself along with my hands. In the village of Nabuna lived the wifeand four daughters of the Samoan captain. He told me he had had fivewives before, and when I asked if they were all dead, he replied thatthey were still alive, but he had got rid of them as they were no good.

The daughters were all very pretty girls, especially the youngest,a little girl. of nine years old. I always think that the littleSamoan girls, with their long wavy black hair, are among the prettiestchildren in the world.

We had an excellent supper of native oysters, freshwater prawns andeels, fish, chicken, and many other native dishes. That eveninga big Fijian dance ("meke-meke"), was given in my honour. Two ofthe captain's daughters took part in it. The girls sit down all thetime in a row, and wave their hands and arms about and sing in a lowkey and in frightful discord. It does not in any way come up to thevery pretty "siva-siva" dancing of the Samoans, and the Fiji dancelacks variety. There is a continual accompaniment of beating withsticks on a piece of wood. All the girls decorate themselves withcoloured leaves, and their bodies, arms and legs glisten as in Samoawith coconut-oil, really a very clean custom in these hot countries,though it does not look prepossessing. Our two Samoans in the crew were

most amusing; they came in dressed up only in leaves, and took offthe Fijians to perfection with the addition of numerous extravagantgestures. I laughed till my sides ached, but the Fijians never evensmiled. However, our Samoans gave them a bit of Samoan "siva-siva"and plenty of Samoan songs, and it was amusing to see the interestthe Fijians took in them. It was, of course, all new to them. I drankplenty of "angona," that evening. It is offered you in a different wayin Samoa. In Fiji, the man or girl, who hands you the coconut-shellcup on bended knee, crouches at your feet till you have finished. InFijian villages a sort of crier or herald goes round the houses everynight crying the orders for the next day in a loud resonant voice, andat once all talking ceases in the hut outside which he happens to be.

The next two days it blew a regular hurricane, and the captain darednot venture out to sea, our schooner lying safely at anchor inside thecoral reef. I have not space to describe my stay here, but it provedmost enjoyable, and the captain's pretty Samoan daughters gave several"meke-mekes" (Fijian dances) in my honour, and plenty of "angona"was indulged in, and what with feasts, native games and first-classfishing inside the coral reef, the time passed all too quickly. Icalled on the "Buli" or village chief, with the captain. He was aboy of fifteen, and seemed a very bashful youth.

We sailed again about five a.m. on the third morning, as the stormseemed to be dying down and the captain was anxious to get on. Wehad not gone far, however, before the gale increased in fury until itturned into a regular hurricane. First our foresheet was carried away;this was followed by our staysail, and things began to look serious,in fact, most unpleasantly so. The captain almost seemed to lose hishead, and cursed loud and long. He declared that he had been a foolto put out to sea before the storm had gone down, and the LURLINE,being an old boat, could not possibly last in such a storm, andadded that we should all be drowned. This was not pleasant news,and as the cabin was already half-full of water, and we expectedeach moment to be our last, I remained on deck for ten weary hours,clinging like grim death to the ropes, while heavy seas dashed overme, raking the little schooner fore and aft.

Toward evening, however, the wind subsided considerably, which enabledus to get into the calm waters of the Somo-somo Channel between theislands of Vanua Levu and Taviuni.

The wreckage was put to rights temporarily, the Samoans, who hadpreviously made up their minds that they were going to be drowned,burst forth into their native songs, and we broke our long fastof twenty-four hours, as we had eaten nothing since the previousevening. It was an experience I am not likely to forget, as it was theworst storm I have ever been in, if I except the terrible typhoon ofOctober, 1903, off Japan, when I was wrecked and treated as a Russianspy. On this occasion a large Japanese fishing fleet was entirelydestroyed. I was, of course, soaked to the skin and got badly bruised,and was once all but washed overboard, one of the Fijians catchinghold of me in the nick of time. We cast anchor for the night, thoughwe had only a few miles yet to go, but this short distance took useight or nine hours next day, as this channel is nearly always calm. Wehad light variable breezes, and tacked repeatedly, but gained groundslowly. These waters seemed full of large turtles, and we passed themin great numbers. We overhauled a large schooner, and on hailing them,the captain, a white man, came on deck. He would hardly believe that

we had been all through the storm. He said that he had escaped most ofit by getting inside the coral reef round Vanua Levu, but even duringthe short time he had been out in the storm, he had had to throw thegreater part of his cargo overboard. From the way he spoke, he hadevidently been drinking, possibly trying to forget his lost cargo.

Before I left Fiji I heard that the LURLINE had gone to her lastberth. She was driven on to a coral reef in a bad storm off the coastof Taviuni. The captain seemed to stand in much fear of Ratu Lala. Hetold me many thrilling yarns about him; said he robbed his peoplebadly, and added that he did not think that I would get on well withhim, and would soon be anxious to leave.

I landed at the large village of Somo-somo, glad to be safely onTERRA FIRMA once more. It was a pretty village, with a large mountaintorrent dashing over the rocks in the middle of it. The huts weredotted about irregularly on a natural grass lawn, and large trees,clumps of bamboo, coconuts, bread-fruit trees, and bright-coloured"crotons" added a great deal to the picturesqueness of the village. Atthe back the wooded hills towered up to a height of nearly 4,000 feet,and white streaks amid the mountain woods showed where many a finewaterfall tumbled over rocky precipices.

Ratu Lala lived in a wooden house, built for him (as "Roko" forTaviuni), by the government, on the top of a hill overlooking thevillage, and. thither on landing I at once made my way. I found thePrince slowly recovering from an attack of fever, and lying on a heapof mats (which. formed his bed) on the floor of his own private room,which, however, greatly resembled an old curiosity shop. Everythingwas in great disorder, and piles of London Graphics and other paperslittered the ground, and on the tables were piled indiscriminatelyclocks, flasks, silver cups, fishing rods, guns, musical boxes, andnumerous other articles which I discovered later on were presents fromhigh officials and other Europeans, and which he did not know whatto do with. Nearly every window in the house had a pane of glass[3]broken, the floors were devoid of mats or carpets, and in places wererotten and full of holes. This will give some idea of the state ofchaos that reigned in the Prince's "palace."

Ratu Lala himself was a tall, broad-shouldered man of about forty, hishair slightly grey, with a bristly moustache and a very long slopingforehead. Though dignified, he wore an extremely fierce expression,so much so that I instinctively felt his subjects had good cause totreat him with the respect and fear that I had heard they gave him. Hebelongs to the Fijian royal family, and though he does not rank ashigh as his cousin, Ratu Kandavu Levu, whom I also visited at Bau,he is infinitely more powerful, and owns more territory. His fatherwas evidently a "much married man" since Ratu Lala himself told methat he had had "exactly three hundred wives." But in spite of thishe had been a man of prowess, as the Fijians count it, and I receivedas a present from Ratu Lala a very heavy hardwood war-club that hadonce belonged to his father, and which, he assured me, had killed agreat many people. Ratu Lala also told me that he himself had offeredto furnish one hundred warriors to help the British during the lastEgyptian war, but that the government had declined his offer. One ofthe late Governors of Fiji, Sir John Thurston, was once his guardianand, godfather. He was educated for two years in Sydney, Australia,and spoke English well, though in a very thick voice. Not only doeshe hold sway over the island of Taviuni, but also over some smaller

islands and part of the large island of Vanua Levu. He also holdsthe rank of "Roko" from the government, for which he is well paid.

After reading my letter of introduction he asked me to stay as longas I liked, and he called his head servant and told him to find mea room. This servant's name was Tolu, and as he spoke English fairlywell, I soon learned a great deal about Ratu Lala and his people.

Ratu Lala was married to a very high-caste lady who was closely relatedto the King of Tonga, and several of whose relatives accompanied uson our expeditions. By her he had two small children named Tersi (boy)and Moe (girl), both of whom, during my stay (as will hereafter appear)were sent to school at Suva, amid great lamentations on the part ofthe women of Ratu Lala's household. Two months before my visit RatuLala had lost his eldest daughter (by his Tongan wife). She was twelveyears old, and a favourite of his, and her grave was on a bluff belowthe house, under a kind of tent, hung round with fluttering piecesof "tapa" cloth. Spread over it was a kind of gravel of bright greenStones which he had had brought from a long distance. Little Moe andTersi were always very interested in watching me skin my birds, andtheir exclamation of what sounded like "Esa!" ("Oh look!") showed theirenjoyment. They were two of the prettiest little children I think Ihave ever seen, but they did not know a word of English, and called me"Misi Walk." They and their mother always took their meals sitting onmats in the verandah. Ratu Lala had two grown-up daughters by otherwives, but they never came to the house, living in an adjoining hutwhere I often joined them at a game of cards. They were both verystately and beautiful young women, with a haughty bearing which mademe imagine that they were filled with a sense of their own importance.

As is well known all over Fiji, Ratu Lala, a few years before my staywith him, had been deported in disgrace for a term of several months,to the island of Viti Levu, where he would be under the paternal eyeof the government. This was because he had punished a woman, who hadoffended him, by pegging her down on an ants' nest, first smearingher all over with honey, so that the ants would the more readily eather.[4] She recovered afterwards, but was badly eaten. As regardshis punishment, he told me that he greatly enjoyed his exile, as hehad splendid fishing, and some of the white people sent him champagne.

His people were terribly afraid of him, and whenever they passed himas he sat on his verandah, they would almost go down on all fours. Hetold me how on one occasion when he was sitting on the upper verandahof the Club Hotel in Suva with two of his servants squatting near by,the whisky he had drunk had made him feel so sleepy, that he nearlyfell into the street below, but his servants dared not lay hands on himto pull him back into safety, as his body was considered sacred by hispeople, and they dared not touch him. He declared to me that he wouldhave been killed if a white man had not arrived just in time. He wasvery fond of telling me this story, and always laughed heartily overit. I noticed that Ratu Lala's servants treated me with a great dealof respect, and whenever they passed me in the house they would walkin a crouching attitude, with their heads almost touching the ground.

Ratu Lala's cousin, Ratu Kandavu Levu, is a very enthusiasticcricketer, and has a very good cricket club with a pavilion at hisisland of Bau. He plays many matches against the white club in Suva,and only last year he took an eleven over to Australia to tour thatcountry. I learned that previous to my visit he had paid a visit

to Ratu Lala, and while there had got up a match at Somo-somo inwhich he induced Ratu Lala to play, but on Ratu Lala being givenout first ball for nought, he (Ratu Lala) pulled up the stumps andcarried them off the ground, and henceforth forbade any of his peopleto play the game on the island of Taviuni. I was not aware of this,and as I had brought a bat and ball with me, I got up several gamesshortly after my arrival. However, one evening all refused to play,but gave no reasons for their refusal, but Tolu told me that hismaster did not like to have them play. Then I learned the reason, andfrom that time I noticed a decided coolness on the part of Ratu Lalatoward me. The fact, no doubt, is that Ratu Lala being exceptionallykeen on sport, this very keenness made him impatient of defeat, oreven of any question as to a possible want of success on his part,as I afterwards learnt on our expedition to Ngamia.

I intended upon leaving Taviuni to return to Levuka, and from thencego by cutter to the island of Vanua Levu, and journey up the WainunuRiver, plans which I ultimately carried out. Ratu Lala, however,wished me to proceed in his boat straight across to the island ofVanua Levu, and walk across a long stretch of very rough country tothe Wainunu River. My only objection was that I had a large and heavybox, which I told Ratu Lala I thought was too large to be carriedacross country. He at once flew into a violent passion and declaredthat I spoke as if I considered he was no prince. "For," said he,"if ten of my subjects cannot carry your box I command one hundredto do so, and if one hundred of my subjects cannot carry your boxI tell fifteen thousand of my subjects to do so." When I tried topicture fifteen thousand Fijians carrying my wretched box, it wasaltogether too much for my sense of humour, and I burst forth intoa hearty roar of laughter, which so incensed the Prince that he shuthimself up in his own room during the few remaining days of my stay.

He had a musical box, which he was very fond of, and he had a man tokeep it going at all hours of the day and night. It played four tunes,among them "The Village Blacksmith," "Strolling 'Round the Town," and"Who'll Buy my Herrings" till at times they nearly drove me frantic,especially when I wanted to write or sleep. Night after night thetunes followed each other in regular routine till I thought I shouldget them on the brain. How he could stand it was a puzzle to me,especially as he had possessed it for many years. I often blessedthe European who gave it him, and wished he could take my place.

Whenever a man wished to speak to Ratu Lala he would crouch at hisfeet and softly clap his hands, and sometimes Ratu Lala would waitseveral minutes before he deigned to notice him.

CHAPTER 2

My Further Adventures with Ratu Lala.

Fijian Huts -- Abundance of Game and Fish -- Methods of Capture --A Fijian Practical Joke -- Fijian Feasts -- Fun after Dinner -- ACourt Jester in Fiji -- Drinking, Dress, and Methods of Mourning --A Bride's Ringlets -- Expedition to Vuna -- Tersi and Moe Journeyto School -- Their Love of Sweets -- Rough Reception of Visitors toVuna -- Wonderful Fish Caught -- Exhibition of Surf-board Swimming byWomen -- Impressive Midnight Row back to Taviuni -- A Fijian Farewell.

In comparison with Samoan huts, the Fijian huts were very comfortable,though they are not half as airy, Samoan huts being very open; but inmost of the Fijian huts I visited the only openings were the doors,and, as can be imagined, the interior was rather dark and gloomy. Inshape they greatly resembled a haystack, the sides being composed ofgrass or bunches of leaves, more often the latter. They are generallybuilt on a platform of rocks, with doors upon two or more sides,according to the size of the hut; and a sloping sort of rough plankwith notches on it leads from the ground to each door. In the interior,the sides of the walls are often beautifully lined with the stems ofreeds, fashioned very neatly, and in some cases in really artisticpatterns, and tied together with thin ropes of coconut fibre, dyedvarious colours, and often ornamented with rows of large white cowryshells. The floor of these huts is much like a springy mattress,being packed to a depth of several feet with palm and other leaves,and on the top are strips of native mats permanently fastened, whereasin Samoa the floor is made up of small pieces of brittle white coral,over which are loose mats, which can be moved at will. In Fijianhuts there is always a sort of raised platform at one end of the hut,on which are piles of the best native mats, and, being the guest, Igenerally got this to myself. The roof inside is very finely thatched,the beams being of "Niu sau," a native palm,[5] the cross-pieces andmain supports being enormous bits of hard wood. The smaller supports ofthe sides are generally the trunks of tree-ferns. The doors in most ofthe huts are a strip of native matting or fantastically-painted "tapa"cloth, fastened to two posts a few feet inside the hut. In some hutsthere are small openings in the walls which answer for windows. Thehearth was generally near one of the doors in the centre of the hut,and fire was produced by rubbing a piece of hard wood on a largerpiece of soft wood, and working it up and down in a groove till aspark was produced. I have myself successfully employed this methodwhen out shooting green pigeon ("rupe") in the mountains.

With regard to food, I at first fared very well, although we had ourmeals at all hours, as Ratu Lala was very irregular in his habits. Ourchief food was turtle. We had it so often that I soon loathed thetaste of it. The turtles, when brought up from the sea were laidon their backs under a tree close by the house, and there the poorbrutes were left for days together. Ratu Lala's men often brought ina live wild pig, which they captured with the aid of their dogs. Atother times they would run them down and spear them; this was hardand exciting work, as I myself found on several occasions that I wentpig hunting. One of the most remarkable things that I saw in Taviuni,from a sporting point of view, was the heart of a wild pig, which,when killed, was found to have lived with the broken point of awooden spear fully four inches in length buried in the very centreof its heart. It had evidently lived for many years afterwards,and a curious kind of growth had formed round the point.

As for other game, every time I went out in the mountain woods I hadsplendid sport with the wild chickens or jungle fowl and pigeons,and I would often return with my guide bearing a long pole loadedat both ends with the birds I had shot. The pigeons, which werelarge birds, settled on the tops of the tallest trees and made avery peculiar kind of growling noise. Many years ago (as Ratu Lalatold me) the natives of Taviuni had been in the habit of catchinggreat quantities of pigeons by means of large nets suspended from thetrees. The chickens would generally get up like a pheasant, and it

was good sport taking a snap shot at an old cock bird on the wing. Itwas curious to hear them crowing away in the depths of the forest,and at first I kept imagining that I was close to some village. I alsoobtained some good duck shooting on a lake high up in the mountains,and Ratu Lala described to me what must. be a species of apteryx,or wingless bird (like the Kiwi of New Zealand), which he saidwas found in the mountains and lived in holes in the ground, but Inever came across it, though I had many a weary search. Ratu Lalaalso assured me that the wild chickens were indigenous in Fiji, andwere not descended. from the domestic fowl. We had plenty of fish,both salt and fresh water, and the mountain streams were full oflarge fish, which Ratu Lala, who is a keen fisherman, caught withthe fly or grasshoppers. He sometimes caught over one hundred ina day, some of them over three pounds in weight. The streams werealso full of huge eels and large prawns, and a kind of oyster wasabundant in the sea, so what with wild pig, wild chickens, pigeons,turtles, oysters, prawns, crabs, eels, and fish of infinite variety,we fared exceedingly well. Oranges, lemons, limes, large shaddocks,"kavika," and other wild fruits were plentiful everywhere.

During my stay here in August and September the climate was delightful,and it was remarkably cool for the tropics. I often accompanied RatuLala on his fishing excursions, and he would often recount to memany of his escapades. On one occasion he told me that he had puta fish-hook through the lip of his jester, a little old man of thename of Stivani, and played him about with rod and reel like a fish,and had made him swim about in the water until he had tired him out,and then he added, "I landed the finest fish I ever got."

I added a good many interesting birds to my collection during mystay here, among them a dove of intense orange colour, one of themost striking birds I have ever seen. Plant life here was exceedinglybeautiful and interesting, especially high up in the mountains, palms,PANDANUS, cycads, crotons, ACALYPHAS, LORANTHS, aroids, FREYCINETIAS,ferns and orchids being strongly represented, and among the lattermay be mentioned a fine orange DENDROBIUM and a pink CALANTHE. Ifound in flower a celebrated creeper, which Ratu Lala had told meto look out for. It had very showy red, white and blue flowers,and in the old days Ratu Lala told me that the Tongan people wouldcome over in their canoes all the way from the Tonga Islands, nearlyfour hundred miles away, simply to get this flower for their dances,and when gathered, it would last a very long time without fading. Itried to learn the traditions about this flower, but Ratu Lala eitherdid not know of any or else he was not anxious to tell me about them.

The coastal natives, like most South Sea Islanders, were splendidswimmers, but, so far as I was concerned, it was dangerous work bathingin the sea here, as man-eating sharks were very numerous, and during mystay I saw a Fijian carried ashore with both his legs bitten clean off.

Usually, when out on expeditions, we occupied the "Buli's" hut andlived on the fat of the land. At meal times quite a procession of menand women, glistening all over with coconut oil, would enter our hutbearing all sorts of native food, including fish in great variety,yams, octopus, turtle, sucking-pig, chicken, prawns, etc. They werebrought in on banana and other large leaves, and we, of course, atethem with our fingers. Good as the food undoubtedly was, I was alwaysglad when the meal was over, as it is very far from comfortable tosit with your legs doubled up under you. Afterwards I could hardly

stand up straight, owing to cramp. I found it especially trying inSamoa, where one had to sit in this manner for hours during feasts,"kava"-drinking and "siva-sivas" (dances). Sometimes a glisteningdamsel would fan us with a large fan made out of the leaf of a fanpalm,[6] which at times got rather in the way. I never got waited onbetter in my life. Directly I had finished one course a dozen girlswere ready to hand me other dishes, and when I wanted a drink a girlimmediately handed me a cup made out of the half-shell of a coconutfilled with a kind of soup. We generally had an audience of fullyfifty people, and when we had finished eating, a wooden bowl of waterwas handed to us in which to wash our hands. Ratu Lala would generallyhand the bowl to me first, and I would wash my hands in silence, butdirectly he started to wash his hands, everyone present, includingchiefs and attendants, would start clapping their hands in even time,then one man would utter a deep and prolonged "Ah-h," when the crowdwould all shout together what sounded like "Ai on dwah," followed bymore even clapping. I never learned what the words meant. In thisrespect Ratu Lala was most curiously secretive, and always evadedquestions. Whenever he took a drink, a clapping of hands made meaware of the fact.

One day, when they had chanted after a meal as usual, Ratu Lala turnedaround to me and mimicked the way his jester or clown repeated it,and there was a general laugh. This jester, whose name was Stivani,was a little old man who was also jester to Ratu Lala's father. RatuLala had given him the nickname of "Punch," and made him do allsorts of ridiculous things -- sing and dance and go through variouscontortions dressed up in bunches of "croton" leaves. He kept us allmuch amused, and was the life and soul of our party, but at times Icaught the old fellow looking very weary and sad, as if he was tiredof his office as jester.

The "angona" root (PIPER METHYSTICUM) is first generally pounded,but is sometimes grated, and more rarely chewed by young maidens. Itis then mixed with water in a large wooden bowl, and the remains ofthe root drawn out with a bunch of fibrous material. It is then readyfor drinking.

On gala and festal occasions the Fijians were wonderfully andfantastically dressed up, their huge heads of hair thickly coveredwith a red or yellow powder, and they themselves wearing large skirtsor "sulus" of coloured "tapa" and PANDANUS ribbons and necklaces ofcoloured seeds, shells, and pigs'-tusks. In out-of-the-way parts the"sulus" are still made of "tapa" cloth, and the women sometimes wearsmall fibrous aprons. They also often wear wild pigs'-tusks roundtheir necks.

I noticed that many Fijian women were tattooed on the hands and arms,and at each corner of the mouth (a deep blue colour). Both men andwomen gave themselves severe wounds about the body, generally as a signof grief on the death of some near relative. I once noticed a younggirl of sixteen or seventeen with a very bad unhealed wound belowone of her breasts, which was self-inflicted. Her father, a chief,had died only a short time previously. They often also cut off thelittle finger for similar reasons. Like the Samoans, the Fijians oftencover their hair with white lime, and the effect of the sun bleachesthe hair and changes it from black to a light gold or brown colour.

A marriageable young lady in Fiji would generally have a great

quantity of long braided ringlets hanging down on ONE side of herhead. This looked odd, considering that the rest of her hair waserect or frizzly. It was a great insult to have these ringlets cut. Iheard of it once being done by a white planter, and great troubleand fighting were the result.

I accompanied Ratu Lala on several expeditions to various partsof the island, and we also visited several smaller islands withinhis dominions. On these occasions we always took possession of the"Buli's," or village chief's, hut, turning him out, and feeding onall the delicacies the village could produce. After we had practicallyeaten them out of house and home we would move on and take possessionof another village. The inhabitants did not seem to mind this; in fact,they seemed to enjoy our visit, as it was an excuse for big feasts,"meke-mekes" (dances) and "angona" drinking.

One of the most enjoyable expeditions that I made with Ratu Lalawas to Vuna, about twenty miles away to the south. A small steamer,the KIA ORA, which made periodical visits to the island to collectthe government taxes in copra, arrived one day in the bay. Ratu Lalathought this would be a good opportunity for us to make a fishingexpedition to Vuna. We went on board the steamer while our large boatwas towed behind.

At the same time Ratu Lala's two little children, Moe and Tersi,started off, in charge of Ratu Lala's Tongan wife and other women,to be educated in Suva. It was the first time they had ever left home,but I agreed with Ratu Lala, that it was time they went, as they didnot know a word of English, and, for the matter of that, neither didhis Tongan wife. When we all arrived at the beach to get into theboat, we found a large crowd, chiefly women, sitting on the ground,and as Ratu Lala walked past them, they greeted him with a kind ofsalutation which they chanted as with one voice. I several timesasked him what it meant, but he always evaded the question somehow,and seemed too modest to tell me. I came to the conclusion that itran something like "Hail, most noble prince, live for ever." Thenext minute all the women started to howl as if at a given signal,and they looked pictures of misery. Several of them waded out intothe sea and embraced little Tersi and Moe. This soon set the childrencrying as well, so that I almost began to fear that the combined tearswould sink our boat. Their old grandmother waded out into the seaup to her neck and stayed there, and we could hear her howling longafter we had got on board the steamer. When we got into Ratu Lala'sboat at Vuna there was another very affecting farewell. Some monthslater when I returned to Suva, I asked a young chief, Ratu Pope,to show me where they were at school, and I found them at a smallkindergarten for the children of the Europeans in Suva.

They seemed quite glad to see their old friend again, and still moreso when I promised to bring them some lollies (the term used forsweets in Australasia) that afternoon.

When I returned I witnessed a pretty and interesting sight The twolittle children were standing out in the school yard while severalFijian men and women of noble families who had been paying the littleprince and princess a visit, were just taking their leave. It was acurious sight to see these old people go in turn up to these two littlemites and go down on their knees and kiss their little hands reverentlyin silence. All this homage seemed to bore the small high-born ones,

and hardly was the ceremony over when they caught sight of me, and,rushing toward me with cries of "Misi Walk siandra, lollies," theynearly knocked over some of their visitors, who no doubt were greatlyscandalized at such undignified behaviour.

To return to our visit to Vuna. Sometime previously, Ratu Lala hadwarned me that whenever he landed at this place with a visitor itwas an old custom for the women to catch the visitor and throw himinto the sea from the top of a small rocky cliff. To this I raisedserious objections, but arrayed myself in very old thin clothesready for the fray. However, upon landing, very much on the alert,I was agreeably surprised to find that the women left me alone. Yet inpart Ratu Lala's story was true, as he assured me that quite recentlyhe had been forced to put a stop to the custom, as one of his lastvisitors was a European of much importance who was greatly incensedat such treatment, and complained to the government, who told RatuLala that the custom must end.

We came to fish, and fish we did, just off the coral reef, butit would take space to describe even one-half of the curious andbeautiful fish we caught. When I took the lead in the number offish caught, Ratu Lala seemed greatly annoyed, and I was not sorryto let him get ahead, when he was soon in a good temper again. TheFijians generally fished with nets and a many-pronged fish-spear,with which they are very expert, and I saw them do wonderful workwith them. They also used long wicker-work traps. Ratu Lala, on thecontrary, being half-civilized, used an English rod and reel or linelike a white man. Ratu Lala told the women here to give an exhibitionof surf-board swimming for my benefit. As they rode into shore on thecrest of a wave I many times expected to see them dashed against therocks which fringed the coast. I had seen the natives in Hawaii performseventeen years before, but it was tame in comparison to the wonderfulperformances of these Fijian women on this dangerous rock-girt coast.

A great many "meke-mekes" or dances were got up in our honour, but RatuLala detested them, and rarely attended, but preferred staying in the"Buli's" hut, lying on the floor smoking or sleeping. He, however,always begged me to attend them in his place. After a time I found theperformances rather wearisome, and not nearly so varied and interestingas the "siva-sivas" in Samoa. There the girls sang in soft, pleasingvoices, the words being full of liquid vowels. Here in Fiji the singingwas harsh and discordant, as k's and r's abound in the language.

When it came to the ceremony of drinking "angona" I worthily didmy part of the performance. Drinking "angona" is a taste not easilyacquired, but when one has once got used to it, there is not a morerefreshing drink, and I speak from long experience. In Fiji I wasoften presented with a large "angona" root, but it would be consideredexceedingly bad form did you not return it to the giver and tell himto have it at once prepared for himself and his people, you yourself,of course, taking part in the drinking ceremony.

After a stay of several days at Vuna we rowed back by night. It wasa perfect, calm night, and with the full moon, was almost as brightas day. We rowed all the way close to shore, passing under the gloomyshade of dense forests or by countless coconuts, the only sound besidesthe plash of our oars being the cry of water fowl or some night bird,while the light beetles[7] flashed their green lights against the darkbackground of the forest, looking much like falling stars. There are

certain moments in life that have made a lasting impression on me,and that moonlight row was one of them.

We made several expeditions together that were every bit as interestingand enjoyable as the one to Vuna. On one occasion we visited the northpart of the island, as well as Ngamia and other islands. We rowednearly all the way close into shore and saw plenty of turtles. RatuLala started to troll with live bait, as we had come across severalwomen fishing with nets, and on our approach they chanted out agreeting to Ratu Lala, and in return he helped himself to a lot oftheir fish. Ratu Lala had fully a dozen large fish after his bait,and some he hooked for a few seconds. This only made him the keener,and after leaving the calm Somo-somo Channel, although we encountereda very rough sea, he had the sail hoisted and we travelled at a greatrate in and out amongst a lot of rocky islets, shipping any amount ofwater which soaked us and our baggage, and half-filled the boat. Iexpected we should be swamped every moment, and from the frightenedlooks of our crew I knew they expected the same thing. Hence, I wasnot reassured when Ratu Lala remarked that it was in just such a sea,and in the same place, that he lost his schooner (which the governmenthad given him) and that on that occasion he and all his crew remainedin the water for five hours. When I explained that I had no wish to beupset, he said, "I suppose you can swim?" I said "Yes! but I do notwish to lose my gun and other property," to which he replied, "Well,I lost more than that when my schooner went down." I was therefore nota little relieved when he had the sail lowered. He explained that henever liked being beaten, even if he drowned us all, and *all thiswas because I had bet him one shilling (by his own desire) that hewould not get a fish. I mention this to show what foolhardy thingshe was capable of doing, never thinking of the consequences. I couldmention many such cases. We at length came to some shallows betweena lot of small and most picturesque islands, and as it was low tide,and we could not pass, we, viz., Ratu Lala, myself, and the otherchiefs, got out to walk, leaving the boat and crew to come on whenthey could (they arrived at 4 a.m. the next morning). I was glad toget an opportunity to dry myself, and we started off at a good ratefor our destination, but unfortunately we came to a spot where grewa small weed that the Fijians consider a great luxury when cooked,and Ratu Lala and his people stayed here fully two hours, till theyhad picked all the weed in sight, in spite of the heavy rain. Itwas amusing to see all these high-caste Fijians and old Stivani, thejester, running to and fro with yells of delight like so many children,all on account of a weed which I myself afterwards failed to enjoy.

On the way I shot three duck, and later, when it was too dark to shoot,we could see the beach between the mangroves and the sea was almostblack with them. On the other side of us there was a regular chorus ofwild chickens crowing and pigeons "howling" in the woods. After fourhours' hard walking we arrived at our destination, Qelani, long afterdark, dead tired, and soaked to the skin. We put up at the "Buli's"hut; he was a cousin of Ratu Lala, and was a hideous and sulky-lookingfellow, but his hut was one of the finest and neatest I had seen inFiji. As I literally had not had a mouthful of food since the previousevening, I was glad when about a dozen women entered bearing bananaleaves covered with yams, fish, octopus, chickens, etc. We stayed heresome days, but we had miserable, wet weather. There was excellentfishing in the stream here, and Ratu Lala especially had very goodsport. Many of the fish averaged one-and-a-half pounds and more, buthe told me that they often run to five pounds. There were three kinds,

and all excellent eating. The commonest was a beautiful silvery fish,and another was of a golden colour with bright red stripes. During thelatter part of my stay in Qelani I suffered from a slight attack ofdysentery, and it was dull lying ill on the floor of a native hut withno one to talk to, as Ratu Lala always tried to avoid speaking Englishwhenever possible, and would often only reply in monosyllables. Itwould often seem as if he were annoyed at something, but I found thathe did this to all white men, and meant nothing by it. I soon curedmyself by eating a lot of raw leaves of some bush plant, also a greatquantity of native arrow-root.

In spite of my sickness I managed to shoot a fair number of duck,wild chickens and pigeon, and also a few birds for my collection. Oneday, in spite of the rain, I was rowed over to Ngamia, which isa wonderfully beautiful island, about three hours from Qelani. Itwas thickly covered with a fine cycad which grows amongst the rocksoverhanging the sea. The natives call it "loga-loga,"[8] and eat thefruit. I landed and botanized a bit, finding some new and interestingplants, and then rowed on a few miles to call on the only white manon the island, an Australian named Mitchell, who has a large coconutproperty. He was astonished and pleased to see me, and introducedme to his Fijian wife, and his two pretty half-caste daughters soongot together a good breakfast for me. He seemed glad to see a whiteman again, and nearly talked my head off , and was full of anecdotesabout the fighting they had with the Fijian cannibals in 1876. Hetold me that in the last great hurricane his house was blown over onto a small island which he owned nearly half-a-mile away.

To describe all the incidents of my long visit would fill a book,but I think I have written enough to show what a very interestingtime I spent with this Fijian Prince. It was without doubt one ofthe most curious experiences of all my travels in different partsof the globe. With all his faults, Ratu Lala was a good fellow, andhe certainly was a sportsman. All Fiji knows his failings, otherwiseI should not have alluded to them. The old blood of the Fijians ranin his veins, his ancestors were kings who had been used to commandand to tyrannise; therefore he could never see any harm in the manystories of his escapades that he told me, and he seemed much offendedand surprised when I advised him not to talk about them to otherEuropeans. When I started off to Levuka I was greatly surprised tosee all the women of Somo-somo sitting on the beach waiting to see medepart, and as I walked down alone they greeted me in much the sameway as they often greeted Ratu Lala, in a kind of chanting shout thatsounded most effective. It was a Fijian farewell!

Among Ex-Cannibals in Fiji.

CHAPTER 3

Among Ex-Cannibals in Fiji.

Journey into the Interior of Great Fiji -- A Guide Secured -- The Start-- Arrival at Navua -- Extraction of Sago -- Grandeur of Scenery --A Man covered with Monkey-like Hair -- A Strangely Coloured Parrot

-- Wild Lemon and Shaddock Trees -- A Tropical "Yosemite Valley" --Handclapping as a Native Form of Salute -- Beauty of Namosi -- TheVisitor inspected by ex-Cannibals -- Reversion to Cannibalism onlyprevented by fear of the Government -- A Man who would like to Eat myParrot "and the White Man too" -- The Scene of Former Cannibal Feasts-- Revolting Accounts of Cannibalism as Formerly Practised -- SporadicCases in Recent Years -- An Instance of Unconscious Cannibalism by aWhite -- Reception at Villages EN ROUTE -- Masirewa Upset -- Descentof Rapids -- Dramatic Arrival at Natondre ("Fallen from the Skies").

Toward the end of my stay in the Fijian Islands I determined to makea journey far into the interior of Viti Levu (Great Fiji), the largestisland of the great Fijian archipelago. Suva, the chief town in Fiji,and the headquarters of the government, is on this island, but very fewEuropeans travel far beyond the coast, and my friends in Suva declaredthat I would have a fit of repentance before I had travelled very far,as the interior of the island is extremely mountainous and rough. Aftera great deal of trouble I managed to get an interpreter named Masirewa,who came from the small island of Bau. He was a fine-looking fellow,and, like most Fijians, possessed a tremendous mop of hair. His stockof English was limited, and we often misunderstood each other, but heproved a most amusing companion, if only on account of his unlimited"cheek."

I ought here to mention that Fijians vary a great deal, both in colourand language. Fiji is the part of the Pacific where various types meet,viz., Papuan, Malayan, and Polynesian. The mountaineers around Namosi,which I visited, who were all cannibals twenty-five years ago, aremuch darker in colour than the coast natives, and they are undoubtedlyof Papuan origin.

I left Suva with Masirewa on the morning of October 12th, and aftera short sea voyage of three or four hours on a small steam launch,we arrived at the village of Navua. I had a letter to Mr. McOwan,the government commissioner for that district. He put me up for thenight, and we played several games of tennis, and my stay, thoughshort, was an exceedingly pleasant one. The whites in Fiji are themost hospitable people in the world. They are of the old REGIME thatis dying out fast everywhere.

The next day I set out on my journey into the interior, Masirewaand another Fijian carrying my baggage (which was wrapped up inwaterproof cloth) on a long bamboo pole. We followed the course ofthe Navua River for some distance. In the swamps bordering the rivergrew quantities of a variety of sago palm (SAGUS VITIENSIS) called bythe natives Songo. They extract the sago from the trunk, and the palmalways dies after flowering. After passing through about four milesof sugar cane, with small villages of the Indian coolies who work inthe cane fields, we left behind us the last traces of civilization. Wenext came to a very beautiful bit of hilly country, densely wooded onthe hills, though bordering the broad gravelly beaches of the riverwere long stretches of beautiful grassy pastures. Darkness set inas we ascended some thickly wooded hills. The atmosphere was dampand close, and mosquitoes plentiful, and small phosphorescent lumpsseemed to wink at us out of the darkness on every side. I had to strikeplenty of matches to discover the track, and continually bumped myselfagainst boulders and the trunks of tree-ferns. It was late when wearrived at the village of Nakavu, on the banks of the Navua River,where I was soon asleep on a pile of mats in the hut of the "Buli,"

or village chief.

The next morning I resumed my journey with Masirewa and two canoe-menin a canoe, and we were punted and hauled over numerous dangerousrapids, at some of which I had to get out. We passed between twosteep, rocky cliffs the whole way, and they were densely clothedwith tree-ferns and other rank tropical vegetation, the large whitesweet-scented DATURA being very plentiful. The scenery was verybeautiful, and numerous waterfalls dashed over the rocky walls witha sullen roar. Ducks were plentiful, but my ammunition being limited,I shot only enough to supply us with food. I felt cramped sitting ina canoe all day, but I enjoyed myself in spite of the continuous andheavy rain.

Late in the afternoon we arrived at the small village of Namuamua,on the right bank of the river, with the village of Beka on theother side. We were given a small hut all to ourselves, and we faredsumptuously on duck and boiled yams. The next morning I was showna curious but ghastly object, viz., a man covered with hair like amonkey, and I was told that he had never been able to walk. He draggedhimself about on his hands and feet, uttering groans and grunts likean animal.

I hired two fresh bearers to carry my baggage, and after we hadcrossed the river three or four times we passed over some steep andslippery hills for some distance. I managed to shoot a parrot that Ihad not seen on any of the other islands. It was green, with a blackhead and yellow breast. The rain came down in torrents, and I gotwell soaked. We went for miles through woods with small timber, butfull of bright crotons, DRACAENAS, bamboos, and a very sweetscentedplant somewhat resembling the frangipani, the flower of which coveredthe ground. We passed under the shade of sweet-scented wild lemonand shaddock trees, but we got the bad with the good, as a horriblestench came from a small green flowering bush. A beautiful pink andwhite ground orchid (CALANTHE) was plentiful.

We travelled along a steep, narrow strip of land with a river oneach side in the valleys below. We met no one until we arrived atthe village of Koro Wai-Wai, which is situated on the banks of agood-sized river at the entrance to a magnificent gorge of rocky peaksand precipices. Here we found the "Buli" of Namosi squatting downin a miserable, smoky hut where we rested for a few minutes, and thehut was soon filled with a crowd of natives, all anxious to view the"papalangi" (foreigner). The "Buli" agreed to accompany me to Namosi,although his home was in another village. Continuing our journey,we had hard work climbing over boulders, and along slippery ledgesoverhanging the foaming river many feet below. Steep precipices rose oneach side of us, and the gorge grew more narrow as we proceeded. Thescenery was grand, and rather resembled the Yosemite Valley, but hadthe additional attraction of a wealth of tropical foliage. Steep rockyspires topped by misty clouds towered above us and little openingsbetween rocky walls revealed dark green lanes or vistas of tangledtropical growth which the sun never reached. We met many natives,who sat on their haunches when the "Buli" talked to them, and clappedtheir hands as we passed. This was out of respect for the "Buli,"who was an insignificant looking little bearded man and quite nakedexcept for a small "Sulu."

We soon arrived at Namosi. It is a large town situated between

two steep walls of rock, and was by far the prettiest place I hadseen in Fiji, and that is saying a good deal. The town is on bothbanks of the Waiandina River, with large "ivi" and other beautifultrees overhanging the water; brilliant coloured crotons, DRACAENAS,and other fine plants imparted a wealth of colour to the scene,and many of the grand old trees were heavily laden with ferns andorchids. During many years' wanderings all the world over, I do notthink I have ever come across a more beautiful and ideal spot.

The "Buli" was greeted with cries of "m-m-ka-a" in shrill voices by thewomen, for all the world like the caw of an old crow. I learned thatthe "Buli" had not been here for some time, but I seemed to be thechief object of interest, and was followed everywhere by an admiringand curious crowd of dark brown, shiny boys and girls, the former justas they were born and the latter wearing a strip of "Sulu." We put upin a chief's house, and after getting through the usual boiled yams,I went on a tour of inspection around the town, but I soon found that Iwas the one to be inspected. There was a hum of voices in every hut,and doorways were darkened with many heads. Groups of young men,women and children assembled to see the sight, but scampered awayif I approached too near. No white man but the government agent hadbeen here for several years, I was told. Thirty-odd years ago theywould not have been satisfied to "look only," but would have wishedto taste, and many of the present inhabitants would have made chopsof me, and were no doubt peering out of their huts to see if I wasfat or lean, and wishing for days gone by but not forgotten. Isolatedcases of cannibalism still occur in out-of-the-way parts of Fiji, andit is only fear of the government that stops them, otherwise thesemountaineers would at once return to cannibalism. Masirewa came outand stood with folded arms among a large crowd talking about me, and nodoubt taking all the credit for my appearance, and staring at me as ifhe had never seen me before, so that I felt much inclined to kick him.

In the evening, as I skinned the parrot I had shot, Masirewa toldme how one man had said that he would like to eat the parrot, andthat he had replied: "And the white man too." There was a large andvery interested crowd around me as I worked, and they were very muchastonished when told that the birds in England were different fromthose in Fiji, and I was inundated with childish questions aboutEngland. Masirewa seemed to be trying to pass himself off on thesesimple mountaineers as a chief, and was clearly beginning to givehimself airs, so that when he started to eat with the "Buli" andmyself, I had to snub him, and told him sharply to clean my gun andeat afterwards.

I slept the next morning till seven o'clock, and Masirewa told me thatthe natives could not understand my sleeping so late, and that theythought I was drunk on "angona," of which I had partaken the nightbefore. "Angona" is the same as "kava" in Samoa, and is the nationalbeverage in Fiji. Masirewa now only wore a "sulu" and discarded hissinglet. I suppose it was a case of "In Rome do as Rome does," buthe certainly looked better in the dark skin he wore at his birth. Iwas shown the large rock by the river where more than a thousandpeople had been killed for their cannibal feasts. They were usuallyprisoners captured in the Rewa district, also a few white men. Theywere cut open alive and their hearts torn out, and their bodies werethen cut up for cooking on the rock, which I noticed was worn quitesmooth. Sometimes they would boil a man alive in a huge cauldron.

While staying at Namosi the "Buli" gave me some lessons in throwingnative spears, and in using the bow. Whilst practising the latter Inarrowly missed, by a few inches, shooting a woman who stepped outsuddenly from behind a hut.

I was out most of the day shooting pigeons in the woods close by,accompanied by the "Buli," Masirewa, and several boys. The woods werefull of a wonderfully beautiful creeper, a delicate pink and whiteCLERODENDRON which grew in large bunches; there was also a very prettyHOYA (wax flower) scrambling up the trees. We filled ourselves withthe juicy pink fruit of the "kavika," or what is generally known asthe Malacca or rose-apple. The trees were plentiful in the woods,grew to a large size, and were literally loaded with fruit, thefallen fruit resembling a pink carpet. Another very good fruit wasthe "wi," a golden fruit about the size of a large mango. I have seenboth cultivated in the West Indies.

On my return to the village I had a most interesting interviewwith these ex-cannibals, one old and two middle-aged men, thanksto Masirewa, my interpreter. He first asked them how they likedhuman flesh, and they all shouted "Venaka, venaka!" (good). Like thenatives of New Guinea, they said it was far better than pig; they alsodeclared that the legs, arms and palms of the hands were the greatestdelicacies, and that women and children tasted best. The brains andeyes were especially good. They would never eat a man who had dieda natural death. They had eaten white man; he was salty and fat, buthe was good, though not so good as "Fiji man." One of them had tasteda certain Mr. -- -- , and the meat on his legs was very fat. Theychopped his feet off above the boots, which they thought were partof him, and they boiled his feet and boots for days, but they did notlike the taste of the boots. They often kept some of their prisonersand fattened them up, and when the day came for killing one, it wasthe women of Namosi's duty to take him down to the large stone by theriver, where they cut him open alive and tore his heart out. Lastly,I asked if they would still like to eat man if they got the chance,and they were not afraid of being punished, and there was no hesitationin their reply of "Io" (yes), uttered with one voice like the yelpof a hungry wolf, and it seemed to me that their eyes sparkled. Theywere certainly a very obliging lot of cannibals.

Cannibalism is, of course, practically extinct now in Fiji, but inrecent years I am told that there, have been a few odd cases far backin the mountains. On one occasion a man told his wife to build an ovenand that he was going to cook her. This she did, and he then killed,cooked, and ate her. Whilst in Fiji I met an Englishman who in theseventies had tasted human meat at a native feast, he believing itwas pig, and at the time he thought it was very good. I was toldthat in the old days when they wanted to know whether a body wascooked enough they looked to see if the head was loose. If the headfell off it was thought to be "cooked to perfection," but I will notvouch for this story being correct.

I gave the "Buli" a box of matches, and he seemed as pleased as if itwas a purse of gold; they light all their fires here by wood friction,Some of the pet pigs around here were very oddly marked with stripesand spots of brown, black and white. Whilst in Fiji I often cameacross natives far from any village who were being followed by petpigs, as we in England might be followed by dogs. Masirewa amusedme more each day by his cheek and self-assurance. Once I asked him

what he said to the chief of the hut we were in, and he replied:"Oh! I tell him Get out, you black fellow.' "

We left Namosi early the next morning, a large crowd seeing us off, andI was sorry to bid farewell to one of the most beautiful spots in thiswide world. We passed through the villages of Nailili and Waivaka,where I called at the chiefs' huts and held a kind of "at home"for a few minutes, the people simply swarming in to look at me. The"Buli" of Namosi had sent messengers on in front to give notice of myapproach, and at each village they had the inevitable hot yams readyto eat, which Masirewa made the most of. At the entrance to eachvillage there was usually a palisade of bamboo or tree-fern trunks,and here a crowd of girls and children would often be waiting, and onmy approach they would set up loud yells and scamper off, till I beganto think that I must look a very ferocious kind of "papalangai." AtDellaisakau the natives looked a very wild lot. Some of the men hadblack patches all over their faces, and some had great masses of hairshaped like a parasol. One or two of the women wore only the old-timesmall aprons of coconut fibre.

We followed the Waiandina River amid very fine scenery. The slopinghills were covered with woods, and we passed under a canopy of bamboo,the large trumpet flowers of the white DATURA, tree-ferns, large "ivi,""dakua" and "kavika" trees loaded with ferns and fine orchids inflower. We crossed the river several times, and I was carried acrossby a huge Fijian whose head and neck were covered with lime. Rainsoon set in again, and we literally wallowed in mud and water. Igot drenched by the soaking vegetation, so I afterwards waded boldlythrough rivers and streams, as it was impossible to get any wetter.

At Nasiuvou the whole village turned out to greet me, and I held myusual reception in the chief's hut. The chief seemed very annoyed thatI would not stay the night. No doubt he thought that I would provea great attraction for his people. The banks of the Waiandina Riverwere crowded as I got into a canoe, and Masirewa, in trying to showoff with a large paddle, lost his balance and fell into the water, theyells of laughter from the crowd showing that they were not lackingin humour. Masirewa did not like it at all, but I was very glad, ashe had been giving himself too many airs. I dismissed my two bearersand took only one canoe man and made Masirewa help him. We went downseveral rapids at a great pace. It was dangerous but exhilarating, andwe had several narrow escapes of being swamped, as the canoe, being asmall one, was often half-filled with water. We also had several closeshaves from striking rocks and tree trunks. Ducks were plentiful, and Ishot one on the wing as we were tearing down a rapid. The scenery wasvery fine; steep wooded mountains, rocky peaks with odd shapes, steepprecipices, fine waterfalls, grand forests, and picturesque villages,and the scenery as we wound among the mountains was most romantic.

Toward evening we arrived at the large town of Nambukaluku,where we disembarked. Except for a few old men and children wefound it deserted, and we learned that the "Buli," who is a veryimportant chief, had gone to stay at the village of Natondre forsome important ceremonies for a few days, and most of the inhabitantshad gone with him. Thither I determined to go, and we set off alonga mountain path. The rain was all gone, and it was a lovely, stillevening. Suddenly I heard distant yells and shouts and the beatingof the "lalis" (hollow wooden drums), and I set off running, leavingMasirewa and my canoe man carrying my baggage far behind, and on

turning a sharp corner I came full upon the village of Natondreand a most interesting sight. Hundreds of natives were squattingon the ground of the village square, and about one hundred men withfaces black and in full war paint, swinging war clubs, were rushingbackward and forward yelling and singing while large wooden drumswere beaten. They were dressed in most fantastic style, some onlywith fibrous strings round their loins, and others with yards of"tapa" cloth wound around them. Several women were jumping about withfibre aprons on, and all had their hair done up in many curious waysand sprinkled with red and yellow powders. Huge piles of mats wereheaped in the open square, speeches were made, and the people allresponded with a deep "Ah-h" which sounded most effective from thehuge multitude. I came up in the growing dusk and stood behind a lotof people squatting down. Suddenly some one looked round and saw me-- sensation -- whispers of "papalangai" were heard on all sides,and looks of astonishment were cast in my direction. Certainly myentrance to Natondre could not have been more dramatic, and I believethat they almost thought that I had FALLEN FROM THE SKIES, which isthe literal meaning of the word "papalangai."

CHAPTER 4

Mock War-Scene at the Chief's House.

War Ceremonies and Dances at Natondre Described -- The Great Chief ofNambukaluku -- The Dances continued -- A Fijian Feast -- A NativeOrator -- The Ceremonies concluded -- The Journey continued --A Wonderful Fungus -- The bark of the rare Golden Dove leads to itsCaptureReturn to more Civilised Parts -- The Author as Guest of a highFijian Prince and Princess -- A SOUVENIR of Seddon -- Arrival at Suva.

Masirewa soon arrived and I learned that there were some very importantceremonies in which one tribe was giving presents to another tribe,in settlement of some disputes that had been carried on sincethe old cannibal fighting days, and as I passed into the "Buli's"hut I noticed that the dancers were unwinding all the "tapa" clothfrom around their bodies and throwing it on the piles of mats. Iimmediately went behind a "tapa" screen where the "Buli" slept, andbegan to get into dry clothes. This evidently made some of the crowdin the hut angry, as they thought I was lacking in respect to the"Buli" by changing in his private quarters, as in Fiji the very highchiefs. are looked upon as sacred. One fellow kept shouting at me ina very impudent way, so when Masirewa came in, I told him about it,and he lectured the crowd and told them that I was a very big chief;this seemed to frighten them. Later on, I found that Masirewa hadcomplained, and the impudent man was brought up before one of thechiefs, who gave him a lecture before myself and a large crowd inthe hut I put up in. Masirewa translated for me, how the chief said:"The white man, who is a big chief, has done us honour in visitingour town," and to the man: "You will give us a bad name in all Fijifor our rudeness to the stranger that comes to us." I learned thatthe man was going to be punished, but as he looked very repentant Isaid that I did not wish him punished, so he was allowed to sneak outof the hut, the people kicking him and saying angry words as he passed.

I supped with the great "Buli" that evening, and we fared sumptuously

on my duck, river oysters and all sorts of native dishes. We werewaited upon by two warriors in full war paint, and the "Buli's" youngand pretty wife, shining with coconut oil all over her body, sat by meand fanned me. The "Buli" was an aristocratic-looking old fellow witha large nose and a very haughty look. He is a very important chief,but knew no English, and we carried on our conversation through themedium of Masirewa. He spoke in a kind of mumble, with a very thickvoice. Once when he had been mumbling worse than usual there was akind of restrained titter from someone in the crowd at the back. The"Buli" heard it, and slowly turning his head he transfixed the crowdwith his piercing gaze for many seconds amid a dead silence. I wonderedafterwards if anything ever happened to the unfortunate one who wasso easily amused. I learned that besides having an impediment inhis speech, the "Buli" was also paralyzed in one leg. I Put up in adifferent hut, the "Buli" apologizing for his hut being crowded withthe influx of visitors.

I watched a "meke-meke" or native dance that evening in which about adozen girls covered with oil took part. There was a sound of revelrythe rest of the night, for there was feasting and dancing in severalhuts, and discordant chanting and the hum of many voices followedme into my dreams. The next morning I went out shooting pigeons insome thick pathless woods about two miles away, and I also shot someflying foxes which I gave to my companions, as the Fijians considerthem a great delicacy, as do many Europeans. These woods were full ofpineapples, which in places barred our way. Many of them were ripe,and I found they possessed a fine flavour.

In the afternoon the ceremonies were continued, the "Buli" sendingfor me to sit by him in the doorway of his hut to watch them. Firstabout forty women with "tapa" cloth wound around their bodies wentthrough various evolutions, swaying their arms about and chanting intheir usual discordant manner. They then unwound the "tapa" from theirbodies and threw it in a heap on the ground, following this by moremanoeuvres. About twenty men came into the square, some with theirfaces blacked and their bodies stained red with some pigment, andwearing only aprons of coconut strings, with bracelets of leaves ontheir arms and carved pigs' tusks hanging from their necks. They wentthrough some splendid dancing, falling down on the ground and bouncingup again like india-rubber balls. They sang, or rather chanted, all thetime, and so did a kind of chorus of men who beat on wood and bamboo,while the dancers danced round them in circles, and squares, and thenbent backward, nearly touching the ground with their heads. As theydanced they kept splendid time, with their arms, legs and heads.

Then amid shrill yells and cries from the crowd, another processionapproached from the far end of the village in single file. First cameseveral men with spears, which they shook on the ground every now andthen, shaking their bodies at the same time in a fierce manner. Behindthem in single file came a lot of women, each bearing a. rolled-upmat, which they threw down in a heap. These mats are made from thedried "pandanus" leaf. Then several men appeared bearing enormous Fijibaskets full of large rolls of food wrapped up in leaves, also smallerbaskets made of the fresh leaves of the crimson DRACAENA, also full offood. From the enormous number of baskets, the food supply was enoughto feed a large multitude. They were all put down together by the mats.

Then there was dead silence, in which you could almost have heardthe proverbial pin drop, and an oldish man stepped forward and stood

by the mats and baskets, his body wound round with "tapa" till itstuck out many feet from his body. The crowd broke silence with anear-piercing yell. He then spoke, and was interrupted from time to timewith cries of approval or the reverse, and sometimes loud laughter,while the "Buli," sitting by me, every now and then shouted out,or broke into a childish giggle. Then the speaker uttered a lotof short sentences very fast, and every one present said "Venaka"(good) at the end of each sentence. Then the old man unwound the"tapa" around him and threw it on the mats, as did others.

Silence again, and I began to think all was over, but suddenly therewas another shrill sort of yell from the crowd, and from the back ofour hut, amid a tremendous uproar from all present and the beating of"lalis" (drums), appeared a procession of about fifty warriors in theirusual picturesque get-up, all brandishing large war-clubs. They paradedinto the square in very stately fashion, singing in their curious andsavage discords, and then went through some grand dances, keepingwonderful time with their clubs and bodies, and from time to timegiving forth a loud yell which was really thrilling. They next rushedbackward and forward brandishing their clubs and killing an imaginaryfoe, and then clapped their hands together in even time. Then offcame the "tapa" from around them, and the heap was made still larger.

Another yell from the crowd. Then silence, followed by more speaking,and every now and then a deep "Ah-h" from all present, which soundedlike distant thunder and was most impressive. Then all the peopleclapped their hands and chanted a few words in low suppressed voices,and the ceremony, lasting between four or five hours, was over. Fromtime to time a man would approach the "Buli" and fall down on allfours and clap his hands before he could speak. I felt at times asif I was watching a comic opera or a ballet, and there were manyamusing incidents. I think honours were fairly easy between the bigshow and myself, as the people kept whispering and looking around atme the whole time. I never passed a hut without causing excitement,and there would be cries of "papalangai" and a mass of faces wouldappear at the doors. Wherever I went I was followed at a respectfuldistance by a crowd of girls and children, but if I turned to retracemy steps there was a panic-stricken rush to get out of my way. Onone occasion a little child of about two years old yelled withfright when I passed near it. I was much astonished that a whiteman should make such a stir in any part of Fiji, but it is only soin very out-of-the-way villages such as these. I was exceedinglylucky to witness these ceremonies, as they were the most importantones that had taken place in Fiji for many years, and few of theold white residents had seen their equal. I was all the more lucky,as I never expected to see them when I started from Suva.

The next morning I said "Samoce"[9] (good-bye) to the great "Buli,"who, though he was a big chief, was not above accepting with evidentglee the few shillings I pressed into his hand, and with Masirewa andtwo fresh bearers continued my journey in the pouring rain. Once wehad to swim across a swift and swollen river, then we went over steephills, down deep gullies, wading through streams and passing all thetime through thick forests. We stopped once to feed on wild pineapples,the pink "kavika." and the golden "wi," but Masirewa was a bad bushmanand slipped, and stumbled, swore and grumbled, and many times I hadto wait till he came up with me. We followed a deep and beautifulgulch for some distance, wading all the way through a shallow streamwhich flowed over a natural slanting pavement with a smooth surface,

and I found it hard to keep my footing. We got a magnificent viewfrom the top of a high hill of the country to the eastward, withlarge rivers winding among beautiful undulating wooded country asfar as the eye could reach. We passed through but one village, namedNaqeldreteki, and from here I saw two very fine waterfalls fallingside by side over a steep cliff several hundred feet straight dropinto the forest below. It was about here that I came across a mostbeautiful sort of fungus of a bright scarlet and orange, and in theshape of a perfect star.

I heard what I took to be the gruff bark of a dog, when it suddenlydawned upon me that there could not be any dogs here, as we werefar from any village. Upon investigation I discovered that it was abird that was the author of the noise, and I soon brought it downwith a load of dust-shot, and to my great delight it proved to bethe golden dove, a bird which I had hunted for in vain in the otherislands. It was of a very fine metallic golden-yellow colour, andthe feathers being long and narrow, gave it a very odd appearance. 1could only mutter "venaka, venaka" (good), and in spite of the heavyrain reverently and slowly rolled it up in cotton wool and paper, tothe great amusement of my three Fijians. Among the most interestingfeatures of bird life in the Samoan and Fijian Islands were the variousmembers of the dove family, which looked wonderfully brilliant withtheir metallic greens, and their orange, crimson, purple, yellow,pink, cream and olive green. The latter part of the journey was throughbushy country dotted about with many large orchid and fern-laden trees.

We arrived toward dusk at the large village of Serea, on the WainimalaRiver, which is a branch of the Rewa River, and I put up in the largehut of the "Buli." I began to feel like an ordinary mortal again,as the people here did not exhibit any great surprise on seeing me,no doubt because, being in the Rewa district, they see a few Europeansfrom time to time. After a change into dry clothes and a supper off oneof the large pigeons I had shot EN ROUTE, I had a large and interestedcrowd to watch me skin my dove, and there were roars of laughterduring the process, especially when Masirewa told them it would bemade to look like a real bird with glass eyes. Masirewa at one timespoke sharply to the "Buli" who, I thought, looked a bit annoyed,so I asked Masirewa what he said. "Oh," he said airily, "I told himto keep his pig of a child away from the white chief." Masirewa, wasa character, and evidently had no respect for chiefs and princes,etc., as he treated all the "Bulis" as his equals, which was verydifferent from the generally cringing attitude of the Fijians to theirchiefs. Even the high and mighty "Buli" of Nabukaluku[10] seemed tolike his cheek. Masirewa liked to show off his English, though noone understood a word, and his favourite way of addressing them whenhe was annoyed was "You all black devil pigs." Whilst I was skinningmy dove, the people brought in a horrible-looking carved figure withstaring eyes. It was about five feet high, and they waxed very merry,whenever I looked up at it from my skinning.

I left early next morning in the pouring rain, and found as I passedthrough Serea that it was quite a town. Quite a large crowd escortedme down the steep banks of the river (Wainimala), and we were soonspinning down stream in a large canoe. We soon joined another riverwhich, together with the Wainimala, formed the Rewa, the largestriver in Fiji. The scenery was both varied and picturesque, and onceI got the canoe paddled up a little shady creek where there was a verybeautiful waterfall, and where I was glad to stretch my legs for a few

minutes after being cramped up in the canoe. There were many prettyand quaint villages on the banks, and the people often rushed out oftheir huts to see us pass. Ducks were plentiful, and I got a fair bagand used up my remaining cartridges, and the rest of the way 1 had tobe content with pointing my gun at them, which was very tantalizing. Wearrived about three p.m. at the village of Viria, and I stayed with the"Buli" in his hut almost overhanging the river. In the evening I took astroll with the "Buli" round the village, and then we sat on a log bythe river chatting, with Masirewa acting as interpreter. We continuedour journey the next morning, and late in the day we passed largefields of sugarcane. We had returned to civilization once more, andI could not help feeling a pang of regret. We arrived at the villageof Navuso about four p.m., and I was the guest of Andi (princess)Cakobau (pronounced Thakombau) and her husband, Ratu (prince)Beni Tanoa. Princess Cakobau is the highest lady of rank in Fiji,and belongs to the royal family. She is very stately and ladylike,and in her younger days was very beautiful. She does not know anyEnglish, but she wrote her autograph for me in my note-book to pasteon her photograph, as she writes a very good hand. Her husband isalso one of the highest chiefs in Fiji, and speaks good English. Theyproved most hospitable, and presented me with some Fijian fans whenI left the next morning, and the Princess gave me a buttonhole offlowers out of her garden. Dick Seddon, the Premier of New Zealand,had once visited them, and I noticed his portrait that he had giventhem fastened to a post in their hut. I left Navuso by steam launchwhich called at the large sugar-mills a little lower down, and reachedSuva that afternoon, feeling very fit after one of the most enjoyableand interesting expeditions that I ever made.

My Life Among Filipinos and Negritos and a Journey in Search ofBearded Women.

CHAPTER 5

At Home Among Filipinos and Negritos.

Arrival at Florida Blanca -- The Schoolmaster's House Kept by Pupilsin their Master's Absence -- Everyday Scenes at Florida Blanca --A Filipino Sunday -- A Visit to the Cock-fighting Ring -- A StrangeChurch Clock and Chimes -- Pugnacious Scene at a Funeral -- StrainedRelations between Filipinos and Americans -- My New Servant --Victoriano, an Ex-officer of Aguinaldo's Army, and his Six Wives-- I Start for the Mountains -- "Free and easy" Progress of myBuffalo-cart -- Ascent into the Mountains -- Arrival at my FutureAbode -- Description of my Hut and Food -- Our Botanical Surroundings-- Meetings with the Negritos -- Friendliness and Mirth of the LittlePeople -- Negritos may properly be called Pigmies -- Their Appearance,Dress, Ornaments and Weapons -- An Ingenious Pig-arrow -- ExtraordinaryFish-traps -- Their Rude Barbaric Chanting -- Their Chief and HisHouse -- Cure of a Malarial Fever and its Embarrassing Results --"Agriculture in the Tropics" -- A Hairbreadth Escape -- FilipinoBlowpipes -- A Pigmy Hawk in Pigmyland -- The Elusive PITTA -- Names ofthe Birds -- A Moth as Scent Producer -- Flying Lizards and other kinds

-- A "Tigre" Scare by Night -- Enforced Seclusion of Female Hornbill.

When collecting in the Philippines, I put in most of my time inthe Florida Blanca Mountains, in the province of Pampanga, NorthernLuzon. I arrived one evening after dark at the good-sized village ofFlorida Blanca, which is situated a few miles from the foot of themountain, whose name it shares. I carried a letter to the Americanschoolmaster, who was the only white man in the district, and had beena soldier in the late war. It seemed to me a curious policy on the partof the American government to turn their soldiers into schoolmasters,especially as in most cases they are very ignorant themselves. Ibelieve, however, the chief object is to teach the young FilipinosEnglish, and so turn them into live American citizens. The Americansare far from popular in the Philippines, and when in Manila I wasstrongly advised not to wear KHAKI in the jungle for fear of beingtaken for an American soldier.

The American's house was dark and still when I arrived at FloridaBlanca, but whilst I was wondering what to do, I was surprised tohear a small voice, coming out of a small adjoining house, say ingood English (though slowly and with a strong accent), "Thee --master -- has -- gone -- into -- thee -- mountains -- to -- kill --deer -- and -- pigs." This was from one of the American's own pupils,an intelligent little fellow named Camilo. As I learnt that he was notexpected back for two or three days, there was nothing left but to makemyself as comfortable as possible in his house until his return. Camilowas soon boiling me some water, and I opened some of my provisions,as I had eaten nothing for eight hours. The house was an ordinaryFilipino one, raised fully ten feet from the ground and built ofnative timber, the peaked roof, which had a frame-work of bamboo,being thatched with palm-leaves. The divisions between the rooms wereof plaited bamboo work, and the sliding windows were latticed, eachdivision being fitted with pieces of pearl shell. The next morningI was invaded by quite an army of small boys, who, to my surprise,all spoke English very prettily in their slow way and with a quaintaccent. I have never come across a more bright and intelligent setof little fellows, all very friendly and not a bit shy, yet mostpolite and well-mannered. They were manly little fellows, with thefaces of cherubs, and they were always smiling. Though the ages of myfive little favourites, Camilo, Nicolas, Fernando, Dranquilino andVictorio, ranged only from eleven down to seven (the latter beinglittle smiling-faced Victorio), they did all my errands for me,bought me little rolls of sweetish bread, eggs and fruit, and weremost honest. They talked to me as if they had known me all theirlives, acted as my guides and showed me all there was to see. Theygenerally followed me in a row, with their arms round each other'sneck in a most affectionate way, and I never heard any of them useone angry word amongst themselves. The few days that I spent here,I wandered through the narrow lanes and collected a few birds andbutterflies. These lanes were very dusty at the time, and were hemmedin with an uninteresting shrubby growth on each side. The country roundFlorida Blanca was for the most part covered with rice-fields, which,at the time of my visit, were parched and covered with short stubble,this being the dry season. I was not very successful in my collecting,and looked forward to my visit to the mountains, which I could seein the distance, and which appeared well covered with damp-lookingforests. I noticed quantities of white egrets, which settled on thebacks of the water buffaloes. I would often pass these water buffaloeswith their heads sticking out of a way-side pond of mud and water. They

were generally used for drawing the curious wagons of the country,which were rather like those one sees in Mexico, with solid woodenwheels. Generally when I met these water buffaloes out of harness,they were horribly afraid of me and stampeded, at the same time makingthe most extraordinary noises, something between a squeak and a shortblast on a penny trumpet. They are usually stupid-looking brutes,but this showed that they were intelligent enough to distinguishbetween me and a Filipino. The pigs here had three pieces of woodround their necks fastened together to form a triangle, an excellentidea, as it prevented them from breaking through the fences. The dayfollowing my arrival was a Sunday, and the church, a large buildingof stone and galvanized iron, was almost opposite the American'shouse. I watched the people going to early mass (the Filipinos aredevout Roman Catholics). All the women wore gauzy veils thrown overtheir heads, white or black were the prevailing colours and sometimesred. I thought they looked very nice in them. I had asked Camilo toboil me some water, but he begged off very politely, as he had togo and put on his cassock and surplice to attend the service in thechurch, where he sang all alone. When he returned, I asked him tosing to me what he had sung in the church, and he at once complied,singing the "Gloria Patri" in a very clear and sweet voice. After masswas over, the church bell began to toll and an empty lighted biercame out of the church. It was preceded by three acolytes bearinga long cross and two large lighted candlesticks, and followed by acrowd of people. They were no doubt going to call at a house for thecorpse. Shortly afterwards an old Filipino priest came out and gotinto one of the quaint covered buffalo wagons with solid wooden wheels(already mentioned), and drove slowly round by the road. It was hotand sultry, and thunder was pealing far away in the mountains. Undera clump of trees (of a kind of yellow flowering acacia), which grewjust outside the large old wooden doors of the church, there wasa group of village youths and loafers, and two or three men wentpast with their fighting cocks under their arms, Sunday afternoonout here being the great day for cock-fighting. There seemed to bea sleepiness in the air quite in keeping with the day of the week,and I was nearly dozing off when little Nicolas came in. I asked himif he knew where the cook-fighting took place, and added, "you savez"(slang for understand"). His eyes flashed, and he said, Me no savage,"but when I explained that I did not call him a "savage," his eyes,smiled an apology, and he willingly offered to show me the placewhere the cock-fighting was to be.

On entering the large bamboo shed or theatre where the cock-fightingtook place, I was met by the old Presidente of the village, towhom I had brought a letter from Governor Joven (the Governor ofthe province), whom I had visited at Bacolor on my way hither. Heconducted me to a seat on a raised clay platform, and sat next to memost of the time, but as the fighting progressed he got very excited,and had to go down into the ring. I had often witnessed it beforein tropical America, but here the left feet of the cocks were armedwith large steel spurs shaped like miniature cutlasses, which beforethe fight began were encased in small leather sheaths. The onlookersworked themselves up into a state of great excitement, and there wasa great deal of chaff, mixed with angry words, and plenty of silver"pesos" were exchanged over the results. But it was cruel work,and the crouching spectators were often scattered right and left bythe furious birds, whilst on one occasion a too venturesome onlookerreceived a rather severe gash on his arm.

The church clock here was a thing to wonder at. It had no dial, andstruck only about five times a day. When it struck ten there was aninterval of over twenty seconds between each stroke until the lasttwo strokes, these coming quickly together, as if it was tired ofsuch slow work! As there was no face to the clock, I was puzzled toknow whether to set my watch at the first or last stroke, or to splitthe difference.

There were a great many funerals during my stay here in December,there being a regular epidemic of cholera and malaria. This was theunhealthy season, and I was told that there were as many deaths inFlorida Blanca during the months of December and January as duringall the rest of the year put together.

One day I watched from my window a funeral procession on its wayfrom the church to the cemetery. The Padre was not there, and thisno doubt accounted for the acrobatic display given by the three menin cassocks and surplices, who led the way, bearing a cross and twocandles. They started by playfully kicking each other, and this soondeveloped into angry words, so that I expected a free fight. Oneof them tucked his unbuttoned cassock round his neck, and egged theother two on. The coffin followed on a lighted bier, and the stringof mourners followed meekly behind, no doubt looking upon this displayas nothing out of the common.

The interior of the church was very cold and bare, and there were noseats. I learnt that the American and the Filipino Padre did not hit itoff together. There were one or two opposition schools in the village,run by Filipinos, who did their utmost to prevent the children fromlearning the language of the hated Americanos. The American didnot make himself any more popular by pulling down the old streetsign-boards bearing Spanish names, and substituting ugly card-boardplacards marked in ink with fresh names, such as America Street,McKinley Street, and Roosevelt Street; he had also named a streetafter himself! Later on I learnt that this American schoolmasterwas a kind of spy in the American secret police, and that he had tolisten outside Filipino houses at night to overhear the conversationof suspected insurgents. I was told this by Victoriano, my Filipinoservant in the mountains, who often accompanied the American in hisnightly rounds, and was the only man in the secret. This Victoriano,whom I always called Vic for short, was the best servant that Ihave had during my wanderings in any part of the world. He spokeSpanish and knew a little English, as he had once been a servantto an Englishman near Manila. With my small knowledge of Spanish,and his smattering of English, we hit it off very well together. Heacted as gun-bearer, cook, laundry maid, housemaid, interpreter andguide. Later on he told me that he had been an officer in the insurgentAguinaldo's army, and that he had been imprisoned by the Spaniards forfour years on the island of Mindanao for belonging to a revolutionarysociety. He was a tall, thin fellow of only thirty-two years of age,and yet his present wife in Florida Blanca was his sixth, all theothers being dead. I used to chaff him about having poisoned them,which much amused him. After some days the American returned, and hetold me of a very good spot in which to collect up in the mountains,so one morning I started off with Vic for a long stay in these mountainforests. We left Florida Blanca before the sun had risen, my luggagebeing carried in one of the curious buffalo wagons. We soon leftthe dry rice-fields behind, and for some distance passed over a wideuninteresting plain of tall grass, dotted about with a few trees. After

going some distance our two buffaloes were unyoked and allowed to soakin a small pond. This process was repeated every time we came to anywater, and this, together with the slow progress of the buffaloes,made the journey longer than I had anticipated. After crossing afair-sized river, we began a gradual ascent into the mountains. Myluggage was then carried for a short distance, and after travellingthrough some bamboo thickets and crossing a rocky stream, I beheld myfuture abode. It was a small grass-thatched hut, with a flooring ofsplit bamboo, raised four feet from the ground; up to this we had toclimb by means of a single bamboo step. About two-thirds of the hutconsisted of a flooring of bamboo, fairly open on all sides but one;this part did as my bedroom, and to get to it I had to crawl througha hole -- one could hardly call it a door! It was quite dark inside,but there was just room enough to lie down on the split bamboofloor. All round the hut was a large clearing, planted with maize,belonging to a Filipino, who from time to time lived in another smallhut about one hundred yards away. He also owned the one I was livingin, and for this I paid him the not very exorbitant sum of one peso(two shillings) a month. Tall gaunt trees rose out of the corn on allsides, and in the early morning they were full of bird-life -- parrots,parakeets, cockatoos, pigeons, woodpeckers, gapers and hornbills,etc. A clear rocky stream flowed by the side of the hut, the sound ofwhose rushing waters by night and day was like music to the ear in thishot and thirsty land, whilst shaded as it was by bamboos and trees,it was a delightful spot to bathe in every morning and evening. I waswell pleased with my surroundings, and looked forward to a successfuland interesting stay. I fared well though the food was rough, and Isubsisted chiefly on rice and papayas, together with pigeons, doves,parrots, and the smaller hornbill, called here "talactic," all of whichfell to my gun. The surrounding country in these lower mountains wasa mixture of forest and open grass-country, the grass often growingfar over my head. The forest, which abounded in clear, rocky streamsof cold water, was very luxuriant and beautiful, especially in manyof the cool, damp ravines further back in the mountains. But near mycamping ground a great deal of the forest seemed to be half smotheredwith large thickets of bamboo, and consequently the larger treeswere rather far apart. There was also a climbing variety of bamboo,which scrambled up to the tops of the largest trees. The undergrowthin places was most luxuriant and consisted of different species ofpalms, rattans, tree-ferns, PANDANUS, giant ginger, PIPERS, POTHOS,BEGONIAS, bananas, CALADIUMS, ferns, SELAGINELLAS and lycopodiums,and many variegated plants. Growing on many of the trees were somefine orchids. Chief amongst them may be mentioned a very beautiful"vanda," which grew mostly on trees in the open grass country, andwhich I witnessed in full bloom during my stay here. They presenteda wonderful sight. Out of the large sheaths of fan-like leaves grewtwo grand flower-spikes, bearing from thirty to forty large white,chocolate and crimson flowers. Of these there were two varieties,and on one large plant I saw fully a dozen flower-spikes. Furtherback in the mountains I came across some fine species of PHALAENOPSIS.

I early made the acquaintance of the little Negritos, the aborigines ofthese mountains, and during my wanderings I would often stumble acrosstheir huts in small clearings in the forest. They never seemed to haveany villages, and I hardly ever saw more than one hut in one place,and they were nearly always miserable bamboo hovels. As for the littlepeople themselves, they seemed perfectly harmless, and from the firsttreated me with the greatest friendliness, and would often pay me avisit at my hut, sometimes bringing me rice and "papayas" or a large

hornbill, which had been shot with their steel-pointed arrows. Theywere quite naked except for a very small strip of cloth. Their skinwas of a very dark brown colour, their hair frizzly, and the noseflat. They were by far the smallest race of people I had ever seen,and they might quite properly be termed pigmies. I certainly nevercame across a Negrito man over four feet six inches, if as tall,and the women were a great deal smaller, coming as a rule only up tothe men's shoulders; the elderly women looked like small childrenwith old faces. Both sexes generally had their bodies covered withvarious patterns cut in their skins, a kind of tattooing it mightbe called, but the skin was very much raised. Many of them hadthe backs of their heads in the centre shaved in a curious manner,like a very broad parting. I did not see them wearing many ornaments,but the men had tight-fitting fibre bracelets on their arms and legs,and the women sometimes wore necklaces of seeds, berries and beads;they would also sometimes wear curiously carved bamboo combs in theirhair. The men used spears and bows and arrows; these latter they wererarely without. Their arrows were often works of art, very fine andneat patterns being burnt on the bamboo shafts. The feathers on theheads were large, and the steel points were very neatly bound on withrattan. These steel points were often cruel-looking things, havingmany fishhook-like barbs set at different angles, so that if they onceentered a man's body it would be impossible to extract them again. Avery clever invention was an arrow made for shooting deer and pig. Thesteel point was comparatively small, and it was fitted very lightlyto a small piece of wood, which was also lightly placed in the endof the arrow. Attached at one end to the arrow-head was a long pieceof stout native cord, which was wound round the shaft, the other endbeing fastened to the main shaft. When the arrow was shot into a pig,for instance, the steel head soon fell apart from the small bit ofwood, which in its turn would also drop off from the main shaft. Thethick cord would then gradually become unwound, and together withthe shaft would trail on the ground till at length it would be caughtfast in the bamboos or other thick growth, and the pig would then beat the mercy of its pursuers. The steel head, being barbed, couldnot be pulled out in the pig's struggles to break loose. I had oneof these arrows presented to me by the chief of these Negritos, but,as a rule, they are very hard to get as the Negritos value them veryhighly. An American officer I met in Manila told me that he had beenquartered for some time in a district where there were many Negritos,and though he had offered large rewards for one of these arrows he wasnot successful in getting one. The women manufacture enormous baskets,which I often saw them carrying on their backs when I met them inthe forest. I was much struck with the cleverness of some of theirfish-traps; these were long cone-like objects tapering to a point,the insides being lined with the extraordinary barb-covered stems ofa rattan or climbing palm, and the thorns or barbs placed (pointinginwards) in such a way that the fish could get in easily but not out.

These Negritos were splendid marksmen with their bows and arrows, andduring my stay amongst them I became quite an adept in that art; theirold chief used to take a great delight in teaching me, and my firstefforts were met with hearty roars of laughter. They were certainlythe merriest and yet the dirtiest people I have ever met. WheneverI met them they were always smiling. When, as happened on more thanone occasion, I lost my way in the forest and had at length stumbledupon one of their dwellings, I made signs to let them understandthat I wanted them to show me the way back. This they cheerfully did,and led the way singing in their peculiar manner; it was a most wild

and abandoned and barbaric kind of music, if it could really be calledmusic at all. It consisted chiefly of shouting and yelling in differentscales, as if the singers were overflowing with joy at the mere ideaof being alive. I would often hear them singing, or yelling likechildren, in the deep recesses of the forest. In fact the contentmentand happiness of these little people was quite extraordinary, and Ihad a great affection for them. They would do almost anything for me,and their chief and I soon became great friends. He was a most amusingold fellow, and nearly always seemed to be laughing. Yet they werealso the dirtiest people I had ever seen, and never washed themselves:consequently they were thick with dirt, which even their dark skinscould not hide. They grew a little rice and tobacco, and the old chiefalways kept me well supplied with rice, which seemed of very fairquality. He also kept a few chickens and would often send me a presentof some eggs, which were very acceptable. In return I would give himan old shirt or two, which he was very proud of. By the time I left,these shirts were almost the colour of his skin, and he evidently didnot wish to follow my advice as to washing them. His house was a verylarge one for a Negrito's, and far better built than any others thatI saw. When the maize which grew round my hut was ripe, the Filipinoowner got several men and women up from Florida Blanca to help himto harvest it, and many of them slept underneath my hut. At nights Iwould generally have quite a crowd round me watching me skin my birds,and although I did not understand a word of their Pampanga dialect,their exclamations of surprise and delight when a bird was finishedwere quite complimentary. Poor Vic had to endure a running fire ofquestions as to what I was going to do with my birds and butterflies,but to judge by the way he lectured on me, he no doubt enjoyed it,and possibly told them some wonderful yarns about "My English," ashe called me. One day a man at work in the maize had a bad attack of"calenturas" (malarial fever). I gave him some quinine and Epsom saltsand this treatment evidently had a good effect, as the next day I was,besieged by a regular crowd of Filipinos of both sexes, who wished toconsult me as to their various ills, and Vic was called in to act asinterpreter. A good many of them, both men and women, took off nearlyall their clothes to show me bruises and sores that they had, and Iwas in despair as to what treatment to recommend. At last when oneold woman had parted with most of her little clothing to show me somesores, I told Vic to tell her that she had better get a good wash inthe river (as she was the reverse of clean). This prescription raiseda laugh, but the old lady was furious, and my medical advice was notagain asked for. After the maize was cut, the owner started to sowa fresh crop without even taking out the old stalks, which had beencut off a few inches from the ground. This was the way he did it. Hemade holes in the ground with a hoe in one hand, and in the otherhand he held a roasted cob of corn, which he kept chewing from timeto time. His wife followed him, dropping a grain into each hole andfilling in the soil with her feet. It would have made a good pictureunder the heading of "Agriculture in the Tropics"! Vic told me thatthey got four crops a year, so one can hardly wonder at their takingthings easily. A rough bamboo fence separated the maize from a copseof bamboo jungle and forest, in which I was one day collecting withVic, when I attempted to jump over a very low part of the fence. Vic,however, called out to me to stop, and it was lucky he did so, asotherwise the consequences would have been terrible for me. Justhidden by a few thin creepers, there had been arranged there a veryneat little pig-trap, consisting of a dozen or more sharp bamboospears firmly planted in the ground, and leaning at a slight angletowards the fence. Except for Vic's timely warning I should have been

stuck through and through, as the bamboo points would stand a heavyweight without breaking, and if I had escaped being killed, I shouldcertainly have been crippled for life. I naturally felt very angrywith my neighbour for not having asked Vic to tell me about this,as the previous day when out alone I had climbed to the top of thisfence and then jumped down into the creepers below; luckily I hadnot then noticed this low part further down.

Many of the Filipinos are very good shots with their blowpipes, andVic possessed one. It was about nine feet in length, and possessed asight made of a lump of wax at one end. Like the bows of the Negritos,it was made out of the trunk of a very beautiful fan-palm (LIVISTONAsp.). Two pieces of the palm-wood are hollowed out and then stucktogether in a wonderfully clever fashion, so that the joins barelyshow. Vic was fairly good with it when shooting at birds a shortdistance away. His ammunition consisted of round clay pellets, whichhe fashioned to the right size by help of a hole in a small tin plate,which he always carried with him.

Birds were fairly plentiful in these mountain forests, and I was gladto get one of the interesting racquet-tailed parrots of the genusPRIONITURUS, that are only found in the Philippines and Celebes. It wascurious that up here amongst the pigmy Negritos I should get a pigmyhawk. It was by far the smallest hawk I had ever seen, being not muchlarger than a sparrow. Several species of very beautiful honey-suckers,full of metallic colours, used to frequent the bright red flowersof a creeper that generally clambered up the trees overhanging thestreams, and these flowers proved very popular with many butterflies,especially the giant gold and black ORNITHOPTERAS and various rarePAPILIOS of great beauty. There was one bird I was most anxious toget, and though I saw it once I had to leave Luzon without it. It wasa PITTA, a kind of ground thrush. Thrushes of this genus are amongstthe most brilliant of all birds, and in my own collections I possessa great number of different species that I have collected in othercountries. This one that I was so anxious to get was locally called"Tinkalu." Amongst both Filipinos and Negritos it has the reputationof being the cleverest of all birds, and, as Vic expressed it,"like a man." It hops away into the thickest undergrowth and hidesat the least sound. Certainly no bird has ever given me such a lot ofworry and trouble. Many a weary hour did I spend going through swampsand rivers, bamboo and thorny palms, dripping with perspiration andtormented by swarms of mosquitos and sand-flies, and all to no purpose!

Thanks to Vic, I soon picked up most of the local names of the variousbirds, which were often given on account of the sounds they made. Thelarge hornbill was named "Gasalo," the smaller kind "Talactic," thelarge pigeon "Buabu," a bee-eater Patirictiric," and other names were"Pipit," "Culiaun," "Alibasbas," "Quilaquilbunduc," "Papalacul,""Batala," "Batubatu," "Culasisi." Some of the spiders here were ofgreat size, and in these mountain forests their webs were a greatnuisance. These webs were often of a yellow glutinous substance,which stained my clothes, and when they caught me in the face, asthey often did, it was the reverse of pleasant.

Mosquitos and sandflies were very numerous and ants were in greatforce, so that one evening when I discovered that they were hard atwork amongst all my bird skins, it took me up to 5 a.m. to separatethem before I could get to bed.

I discovered a diurnal moth that possessed a most powerful anddelicious scent. Vic, who had never noticed it before, was delighted,and proposed my catching them in quantities and turning them intoscent. Whilst on the subject of scent, I might mention that inthese forests I would often come across a good-sized tree which wascalled Ilang-ilang. It was covered with plain-looking green flowers,which possessed a wonderful fragrance. I learnt that the Filipinoscollected the flowers, which were sent to Manila and made into scent,but that they generally cut down the tree in order to get the flowers.

I saw here for the first time the curious flying lizards. Theirpartly transparent wings were generally of very bright colours; theyfly fully twenty yards from one tree to another, and quickly run upthe trees out of reach. Another quaint lizard, was what is generallyknown as the gecko. It is said to be poisonous in the Philippines,and is generally found on trees or bamboos and often in houses. Incomparison to the size of this lizard the volume of its voice wasenormous. I generally heard it at night. First would come a preliminarygurgling chuckle; then a pause (between the chuckle and what followsit). Then comes loud and clear, "Tuck-oo-o," then a slight pause, then"Tuck-oo-o" again repeated six or seven times at regular intervals;at other times it sounds like "Chuck it." When it was calling insidea hollow bamboo, the noise made was extraordinary. There were agreat number of bamboos in the surrounding country, and they werecontinually snapping with loud reports, which I would often imagineto be the reports of a rifle until I got used to them. Wild pig werevery plentiful, and at night they would often grub up the ground a fewyards from my hut. One night I was skinning a bird, with Vic lookingon, when we heard some animal growling close by, and Vic without anywarning seized my gun (which I always kept loaded with buckshot) andfired into the darkness. He said that it was a "tigre," and calledout excitedly that he had killed it, but although we hunted aboutwith a light for some time, we saw no signs of it. No doubt it wassome animal of the cat family. Vic, as in fact all Filipinos, hada mortal dread of snakes, and he would never venture out at nightwithout a torch made of lighted bamboo, as he said they were veryplentiful at night. The large hornbills ("Gasalo") were very hardto stalk, and as they generally frequented the tallest trees theywere out of shot. They usually flew about in flocks, and made a mostextraordinary noise, rather like a whole farmyard full of turkeys,guinea fowls and dogs. The whirring noise they made with their wingswas not unlike the shunting of a locomotive. I had often before heardof the curious habit of the male in plastering up the female with mudin the hollow of a tree, leaving only a small hole through which hefed her until the single egg was hatched and the young one was ready tofly. Vic knew this, and further informed me that the smaller species,named here "Talactic," had the same custom of plastering up the female.

Many evenings, when I had finished my work, I would get Vic to teachme the Pampanga, dialect, and wrote down a large vocabulary of words,and when some years afterwards I compared them word for word withother dialects and languages throughout the Malay Archipelago,I found that, with a few exceptions, there was not the slightestaffinity between them.

CHAPTER 6

A Chapter of Accidents.

A Severe Bout of Malaria in the Wilds -- The "Seamy Side" ofExploration -- Unfortunate Shooting of the Chief's Dog -- FilipinoCredulity -- Stories of the Buquils and their Bearded Women --Expedition Planned -- Succession of CONTRETEMPS -- Start for the BuquilCountry -- Scenes on the Way -- A Negrito Mother's Method of GivingDrink to Her Baby -- Exhausting Marches Amid Striking Scenery -- TheWorst Over -- A Bolt from the Blue -- Negritos in a Fury -- ViolentScenes at a Negrito Council of War -- They Decide on Reprisals --Further Progress Barred in Consequence -- Return to Florida Blanca.

As I mentioned before, this was the unhealthy season in thePhilippines, and Vic assured me that these lower mountains were evenmore unhealthy than the flat country. I myself soon arrived at asimilar conclusion, as a regular epidemic of malaria now set in amongmy pigmy friends, the Negritos, and the old chief told us that hisfavourite son was dying with it; next my neighbour and his wife wereprostrated with it, and when they had slightly recovered, they lefttheir hut and returned to Florida Blanca. Vic himself was next laid upwith it, and seemed to think he was going to die. When I was at workin the evening he would shiver and groan under a blanket by my side;this, coming night after night, was rather depressing for me, allalone as I was. At other times he would imagine we were hunting thewary and elusive PITTA, and would start up crying, "AH! EL TINKALU,it is there! POR DEOS, shoot, my English, shoot!" or he would imaginewe were after butterflies, and would cry out, "CARAMBA, MARIPOSA AZULMUY GRANDE, MUY BUENO, BUENO!" I was forced to do all the cooking forboth of us, though it was quite pathetic to see poor Vic's efforts tocome to my assistance, and his indignation that his "English" shoulddo such work for him. At one time I half expected that he would die,but with careful nursing and doctoring I gradually brought him round.

During all the time that he was ill. I did but little collecting,and no sooner was Vic on the road to recovery than I myself was seizedwith it, and Vic repaid the compliment by nursing me in turn. It wasa most depressing illness, especially as I was living on the poorestfare in a close and dirty hut. When you are ill in civilization, withnurses and doctors and a good bed, you feel that you are in good hands,and confidence does much to help recovery. But it is a different matterbeing sick in the wilds, without any of these luxuries, and you wonderwhat will happen if it gets serious. Then you long for home and itsluxuries, with a very great longing, and cordially detest the spotyou are in, with all those wretched birds and butterflies! It is Ekea long nightmare, but as you get better you forget all this, and thejaundiced feeling soon wears off, and you start off collecting againas keen as ever. One day a small skinny brown dog somehow managed toclimb up the bamboo step into my hut during Vic's temporary absence,and I suddenly awoke to find it helping itself to the contents of aplate that Vic had placed by my side. I was far too ill to do morethan frighten it away. This happened a second time before I was strongenough to move, but the third time I was well enough to seize my smallcollecting gun (which was loaded with very small cartridges), andwhen it was about thirty yards away I fired at it, simply intending tofrighten it, as at that distance these small cartridges would hardlyhave killed a small bird. It stopped suddenly and, after spinninground a few times yelping, it turned over on its back. Even then Ithought it was shamming, but on going up to it I found it was dead,with only one No. 8 shot in its spleen. On Vic's return he was much

alarmed, as he said the dog belonged to the Negrito chief, who wasvery fond of it, and would be very angry with me if he knew. So wehid the body in the middle of a clump of bamboo about a quarter ofa mile away from the hut. But the following day the sky was thickwith a kind of turkey buzzard, which had evidently smelt the dog'scorpse from some distance, and they were soon quarrelling over theremains. Vic worked himself up into a state of panic, saying that itwould be discovered by the Negritos, but a few days later I sent himover to the Negrito chief's hut to get me some rice, and the chiefmentioned that his chief wife had lost her dog, which she was veryfond of, and that he thought that I must have killed it. Vic in replysaid that that could never be, as in the country that I came fromthe people were so fond of dogs that they were very kind to them,and treated them like their own fathers. The chief then said that apig must have killed it, and so the incident ended.

About this time Vic asked my permission to return to Florida Blancafor a few days, as he had heard that his wife had run away with anotherman, and he offered to send his brother to take his place. His brothercould also speak English a little, and was assistant schoolmaster tothe American. He proved, however, an arrant coward, and, like mostFilipinos, lived in great fear of the Negritos. When out with mein the forest he would start, if he heard a twig snap or a bamboocreak, and look fearfully about him for a Negrito. He told me thatthe Negritos will kill and rob you if they think there is no chanceof being found out, and he mentioned a case of an old Filipino beingkilled and robbed by these same Negritos a few months previously. Imanaged to string together the following absurd story from his brokenEnglish. He said that if you heard a twig break in the forest once oreven twice you were safe enough, but if a twig snapped a third time,and you did not call out that you saw the Negrito, you would get anarrow into you. He said that once when he heard the stick "break threetime" (to use his own words), he called out "Ah! I see you Negrite,and the Negrite he no shoot, but came out like amigo (friend)." HisEnglish was too limited for me to point out the many weak and absurdpoints of the story, as, for instance, why the Negrito should make thetwigs break exactly three times, and why he should not shoot becausehe thinks he is seen. I only mention this anecdote to illustrate thecredulity of the Filipinos. The next day, when we were out collectingin the morning, I suddenly saw him start when a bamboo snapped, so Icalled out, "Buenos diaz, Senor Negrite." This was too much for my man,who ran off home and refused to follow me in the forest that afternoon,and when I returned that evening he was nowhere to be seen, and Ifound out later that he had returned to Florida Blanca. In consequenceI was forced to do all my own cooking, which was not pleasant, as Ihad to do it all in the hot sun, and this brought on a return of myfever. At last, one morning, as I was endeavouring to light a fire tocook my breakfast, and muttering unpleasant things about Vic and hisbrother, I suddenly looked up and Vic stood before me like a. silentghost. I say like a ghost, because he looked like one, thin and gauntas he still was from fever. He, too, had had a return of the feverand had not yet recovered, but sooner than that "his English" shouldbe alone, he had dragged himself over in the cool of the night. Thenext day his wife and two children arrived. She had been on a visitto her mother in another village, which accounted for Vic's thinkingshe had run away. They occupied the hut of my late neighbour, andbefore many days had gone they were all bad with fever. It was easyto see that the woman hated me, and imagined I was the cause of herhaving to come and live in these lonely and unhealthy mountains. Vic

told me that there had been so much sickness in Florida Blanca thatthere was no quinine left in the place. My own stock was getting low,and Vic and his family, as well as myself, used it daily. I had curedthe old Negrito chief with it, and he was very grateful to me, andpresented me with some very fine arrows in return.

For some time past I had heard rumours of an extraordinary tribe ofNegritos who lived further back in the mountains, and were namedBuquils, and whose women were reported to have beards. Vic, whomI always found to be most truthful in everything, and who rarelyexaggerated, declared it was true, and furthermore told me thatthese Buquils had long smooth hair, which proved that they could nothave been Negritos. Besides, I learnt that they were quite a tallpeople. Nowhere in the whole world is there such a diversity of racesas in the Philippines, and so it would be quite impossible even toguess what they were. Vic had once seen some of them himself when theycame on a visit to the lower mountains. Though I thought the story,as to the women having beards, a fable, I determined to visit thembefore I left these mountains, and the old Negrito chief, who also toldme that the women really did have beards, offered to lend me some ofhis people to carry my things. But one day Vic heard that his latherwas dying, and when I tried to cheer him up he sobbed in a mixtureof broken Spanish and English, "One thousand senoritas can get, onethousand children can get, but lose one father more cannot get." Onthis account I had to return to Florida Blanca, and besides we wereall very bad with constant attacks of fever, and in this village wecould at all events get bread, milk and eggs to recuperate us. TheAmerican had left for a long holiday, so I managed to hire a smallhouse where I could sort my collections before returning to Manila,where I intended catching a steamer for the south Philippines.

One day the village priest (a Filipino) called on me, and in courseof conversation we spoke about these Buquils. He was most emphaticthat it was true about the women having beards, and he also told methat no Englishman, American or Spaniard had ever penetrated so farback in the mountains as to reach their villages. When he had left Ithought it over, and decided to go and see them for myself, thoughI was still suffering from fever. Vic, whose father had recoveredfrom his illness, declared his willingness to accompany me; in factI knew that he would never allow me to go without him. He was quitemiserable at the idea of our parting, which was close at hand. Asluck would have it, the day before we decided to start, Vic was downwith fever again, and the following day I was seized with it. Neverbefore or since have I been amongst so much fever as I was in thisdistrict. In any case I had made up my mind to see these Buquils,but we had now lost two days, and there was only just enough timeleft to get there and back and to journey back to Manila and catchmy steamer. The day after my attack we started for the mountains oncemore at about two p.m., my fever being still too bad for me to startearlier. It had been very dry lately, with not a drop of rain andhardly a cloud to be seen, but just as we were starting it came on torain in torrents and this meant that the rainy season had set in. Itseemed as if the very elements were against us, and even Vic seemedstruck with our various difficulties. I was sick and feverish, andmy head felt like a lump of lead, as I plodded mechanically along inthe rain through the tall wet grass. I felt no keenness to see thesepeople at the time, fever removes all that, but I had so got it intomy head before the fever that I must go at all hazards, that I feltsomehow as if I was obeying someone else. We passed my old residence

a short way off, and I stayed the night at the Negrito chief's hut,which I reached long after dark. He seemed very glad to see me again,and turned out most of his family and relations to make room forme. My troubles were not yet ended, as the two Filipinos whom I hadengaged to carry my food and bedding could not start till late, andconsequently lost their way, and were discovered in the forest bysome Negritos, who went in search of them about 2 a.m. Meanwhile Ihad to lie on the hard ground in my wet clothes, and as I got verycold a fresh attack of fever resulted. I had intended to start offagain about four a.m., but it was fully four hours later before wewere well on our way. I managed to eat a little before I left, ourrice and other food being cooked in bamboo (the regular method ofcooking amongst the Negritos). I here noticed for the first time themethod employed by the Negrito mothers for giving their babies water;they fill their own mouths with water from a bamboo, and the childdrinks from its mother's mouth. In the early morning thousands ofmetallic green and cream-coloured pigeons and large green doves cameto feed on the golden yellow fruit of a species of fig tree (FICUS),which grew on the edge of the forest near the chief's hut. They madea tremendous noise, fluttering and squeaking as they fought over thetempting looking fruit.

We took five Negritos to carry the rice and my baggage -- two men,two women, and a boy. The women, though not much more than girls,were apportioned the heaviest loads; the men saw to that, and lookedindignant when I made them reduce the girls' loads. As we continuedon our journey, I noticed that our five Negrito carriers were joinedby several others all well armed with bows and extra large bundles ofarrows, and on my asking Vic the reason, he told me that these Buquilswe were going to visit were very treacherous, and our Negritos wouldnever venture amongst them unless in a strong body. As we went alongthe narrow track in single file some of the Negritos would suddenlybreak forth into song or shouting, and as they would yell (as if inanswer to each other) all along the line, I could not help envying themthe extreme health and happiness which the very sound of it seemed toexpress; my own head meanwhile feeling as if about to split. I shallnever forget that walk up and down the steepest tracks, where in someplaces a slip would have meant a fall far down into a gorge below. IfVic was to be believed, I was the first white man to try that track,and I would not like to recommend it to any others. Deep ravines, thatif one could only have spanned with a bridge one could have crossed infive minutes or less, took us fully an hour to go down and up again,and I could never have got down some of them except for being ableto hang on to bushes, trees and long grass. Whenever we passed aNegrito hut we took a short rest. My Negritos, however, wanted tomake it a long one, as they seemed to be very fond of yarning, andwhen I insisted on their hurrying on, Vic got frightened and declaredthey might clear out and leave us, which would certainly have beena misfortune. At length we arrived at a chief's hut, where we hadarranged to spend the night. It was situated at the top of a tall,grassy peak, from which I got a wonderful view of the surroundingcountry: steep wooded gorges and precipices surrounded us on allsides, and in the distance the flat country from whence we had come,and far far away the sea looked like glistening silver. The flatcountry presented an extraordinary contrast to the rugged mountainswhich surrounded me. It was so wonderfully flat, not the smallesthill to be seen anywhere, except where the lonely isolated peak ofMount Aryat arose in the distance, and far away one could just seea long chain of lofty mountains. The effect of the shadows of the

distant clouds on the flat country was very curious. Early the nextmorning, at sunrise, the view looked very different, though just asbeautiful. The chief seemed very friendly. He was a brother of my oldfriend, with whom I had stayed the previous night. This chief, however,was very different to his brother, being very dignified, but he hada very good and kind face, whilst my old friend was a "typical comicopera" kind of character. From what I could understand these two andanother brother ruled over this tribe of Negritos between them, eachbeing chief of a third of the tribe Soon after my arrival I turned in,as I was very tired and feverish and had had no sleep the previousnight. The Negritos, as usual, were very merry and made a great noisefor so small a people. I never saw such people for laughter wheneveranything amused them, which is very often; they were a great contrastin this respect to the Filipinos. This natural gaiety helps to explaintheir many and varied dances, one of which consists in their runninground after each other in a circle.

I felt very much better next morning, and we started off very early,our numbers being increased by the chief and many of his men, so thatI now found myself escorted by quite an army. I took note round hereof the methods used by the Negritos in climbing tall, thick trees toget fruit and birds-nests. They had long bamboo poles lashed together,which run up to one of the highest branches fully one hundred feet fromthe ground. They often fastened them to the branch of a smaller tree,and thence slanting upwards to the top of a tall tree, perhaps as muchas sixty feet and more away from the smaller tree. These Negritos axesplendid climbers, but it seemed wonderful for even a Negrito to trusthimself on one of these bamboos stretching like a thread from treeto tree so far from the ground. I shall never forget the scramble wenow had into the deepest gorge of all, and how we followed the bedof a dried-up stream, which in the rainy season must be a series ofcascades and waterfalls, since we had to scramble all the way overlarge slippery boulders covered with ferns and BEGONIAS. We at lengthcame to a tempting-looking river full of large pools of clear water,into which I longed to plunge. The banks were extremely beautiful,being overhung by the forest, and the rocky cliffs were half hiddenby large fleshy-leaved climbers and many other beautiful tropicalplants. It was one of those indescribably beautiful spots that oneso often encounters in the tropical wilds, and which it is impossibleto paint in words. A troop of monkeys were disporting themselves on atree overhanging the river. Vic was most anxious for me to allow himto shoot one, but I have only shot one monkey in my life, and it isto be the last, and I always try and prevent others from doing so. Wewaded the river in a shallow place, and climbed up the steep hill onthe other side. We had gone a good distance over hills covered withtall grass, and I was now looking forward to a bit of decent walking,as hitherto it had been nearly all miserable scrambling work, and theNegritos told Vic that the worst was now over. But we were approachinga hut, overhanging a rocky cliff, when we heard the sound of angryvoices and wailing above us, and we soon perceived four Negritos(three men and a woman) approaching us. I thought the old woman wasmad; she was making more noise than all the others put together,shouting and screaming in her fury. At first I thought they might behostile Negritos who resented our intrusion, but they belonged tothe tribe of the chief who was with me, and they were soon talkingto him in loud, excited voices. Our own party soon got excited, too,and, as may be imagined, I was longing to find out the cause of allthis excitement. Vic soon told me the reason. It appeared that on theprevious day a large party of our Negritos had gone into the territory

of the Buquils in order to get various kinds of forest produce (as theyhad often done in the past), and had been treacherously attacked bythese Buquils, and many of them killed. One of these was the brotherof a sub-chief, who now approached us, and who was, I believe, thehusband of the frenzied woman. It was a very excitable scene thatfollowed. I suppose one might call it a council of war. It was amystery to me where all the Negritos came from and how they found usout; but they came in ones and twos till there was a huge concourseof them present, all gathered round their chief and squatting on theground. About the only one who behaved sensibly was my friend thechief. He spoke in a slow and dignified manner, but the rest workedthemselves up into a furious rage, and twanged their bowstrings,and jumped about and fitted arrows to their bows, and pointed them atinoffensive "papaya" trees, whilst two little boys shot small arrowsinto the green and yellow fruit, seeming to catch the fever from theirelders. One man actually danced a kind of war-dance on his own account,strutting about with his bow and arrow pointed, and getting into allsorts of grotesque attitudes, moving about with his legs stiffened,and pulling the most hideous faces, till I was forced to laugh.

But it seemed to be no laughing matter for the Negritos. The old womanbeat them all; she did not want anyone to get in a word edgeways,but screamed and yelled, almost foaming at the mouth, till I almostexpected to see her fall down in a fit. I never before witnessed sucha display of fury.

Vic kept me well advised as to the progress of the proceedings, andit was eventually settled that each of the three brother chiefs wereto gather together three hundred fighting men, making nine hundredaltogether, and these in a few days' time were to go up and avengethe deaths of their fellow tribesmen. From the enthusiasm displayedamongst the little men, this was evidently carried unanimously,but I noticed two young men sitting aloof from the rest of thecrowd and looking rather sullen and frightened, and as they did notjoin in the general warlike demonstrations, it was evidently theirfirst fight. Here, however, I made Vic interrupt in order to drawattention to myself. What Vic translated to me was to the effect thatit was out of the question for us to go on into the enemy's country,which we should have reached in another two hours' walk. If we didthey would certainly kill us all by shooting arrows into us from thelong grass (in other words, we should fall into an ambush), and, infact, since they had killed some of this tribe they would kill anyonethat came into their country. By killing these men they had declaredwar. This was the sum total of Vic's translation, and I saw at oncethat it was out of the question for me to go on, as no Negrito wouldgo with me, and I could not go alone. In any case I should have beenkilled. Vic told me that very few of these Buquils ever leave theirmountain valleys, and so most of them had never seen a Filipino, muchless a white man. And so I met with a very great disappointment, andwas forced to leave without proving whether or no the story of thesebearded women was a myth. Lately I heard a rumour that an American hadvisited them and proved the story true. My disappointment may well beimagined. I had come over the worst track I had ever travelled on inspite of rain and fever, but I at once saw that all my labours werein vain and that I could not surmount this last difficulty. But I waslucky in one way. The chief told Vic that if we had gone yesterday weshould all have been killed, as without knowing anything about it,we should have got there just after the fight. So for once feverhad done me a good turn, a "providencia," I think Vic called it,

as I should have reached my destination the previous day if I hadnot been delayed by fever. Out of curiosity to see what the chiefwould say, I told Vic to tell him that I would help him with my gun,but the chief was ungrateful and contemptuous, saying that theywould shoot me before I could see to shoot them. Vic thought I wasserious, and said he would not go with me, and begged me not to go,saying, in a mixture of English and Spanish, "What will your father,your sister, and your brother say to me when Buquil arrow make youdead?" Needless to say I was not keen on stalking Buquils who werewaiting for me with steel arrows in long grass, and, besides, if Iwent with the gallant little nine hundred, I should miss my steamer. Inever heard the result of that fight, much as I should like to haveknown it. After the meeting had dispersed, we returned to the riverand rested. I bathed and took a swim in a big, deep pool under a hugetree, which was one mass of beautiful white flowers. I have neverenjoyed a swim more. Vic also took a wash, and to my great surpriseone of the Negritos proceeded to copy him, and as Vic soaped himselfthe Negrito tried to do the same thing with a stone, with which hesucceeded in getting rid of a great deal of dirt. It surprised andamused the other Negritos, both men and women, who jeered and roaredwith laughter at the unusual spectacle of a Negrito washing himself.

I signed to them to give our boy carrier a wash, as he seemed thenoisiest of the party, and two men got hold of him to duck him, buthe seemed so terrified that I stopped them. The youngster evidentlyhated me for the fright he had received, as later on when I made hima present of a silver ten-cent piece to make up for his fright --this is a very handsome present for a Negrito -- he threw it on theground and stamped his foot in anger. The Negritos shot several fishand large prawns with a special kind of long pointed arrow; thesewe ate with our rice by the river side before returning. The nightI stayed with my old friend, the comic chief, I found him actuallyin tears and much cut up at the idea of his two sons having to takepart in the fight. I suppose it was compulsory for them to fight, butit appeared rather odd to me that a chief should object to his sonstaking part in a fight, as the Negritos are considered very pluckyfighters. The chief sent four Negritos to carry my things down toFlorida Blanca. The following day I started back to Manila, where Icaught my steamer for the southern Philippines. Vic was much distressedat my departure and shed many tears as I said good-bye to him, hisgrief being such that even a handsome tip could not assuage it.

In the Jungles of Cannibal Papua.

CHAPTER 7

On the War-Trail in Cannibal Papua.

Expedition against the Doboduras -- We hear reports about a Web-footedTribe -- Landing at the Mouth of the Musa River -- A Good Bag --Barigi River Reached -- A Flight of Torres Straits Pigeons --A Tropical Night Scene -- Brilliant Rues of Tropical Fish --Arrival of Supplies -- Prospects of a Stiff Fight -- Landing ofthe Force -- Pigs Shot to Prevent them from being Cooked Alive --

Novelty of Firearms -- A Red Sunrise -- Beauty of the Forest --Enemies' War Cry First Heard -- Rushing a Village -- RevoltingRelics of Cannibal Feast -- Doboduras eat their Enemies Alive --Method of Extracting the Brains -- Extensive Looting -- Firing atthe Enemies' Scouts -- An Exciting Chase -- When in Doubt Turn tothe Right -- Another Village Rushed -- Skirmishes with the Enemy --Relics of Cannibalism general in the Villages -- Camp Formed at theLargest Village -- Capture of Prisoners -- An "Object, Lesson" --Carriers ask Leave to Eat one of the Slain -- Arigita's Opinion --Cannibal Surroundings at our Supper -- Expectation of a Night Attack.

We were three white men, Monckton was the resident magistrate, whileAcland and I myself were NON-OFFICIO members of the expedition,being friends of Monckton.

We had been some time at Cape Nelson, where the residency was,a lonely though beautiful spot on the north-east coast of BritishNew Guinea. Whilst here I had made good collections of birds andbutterflies, and had made expeditions into the surrounding and littleknown country, including the mountains at the back, where no whiteman had yet been. And now (September 17th, 1902) we were off on agovernment exploring and punitive expedition into the unknown wildsof this fascinating and interesting country.

We three sat on the stern of the large whale boat, while the twentypolice and our four boys took turns at the oars. They were finefellows these Papuan police, and their uniforms suited them well,consisting as they did of a deep blue serge vest, edged with redbraid, and a "sulu" or kilt of the same material, which with theirbare legs made a sensible costume for the work they had to performin this rough country. As they pulled cheerfully at their oars theyseemed in splendid spirits, for they felt almost sure that they werein for some fighting, and this they dearly love.

Our boys, however, did not look quite so happy, especially my boyArigita, who was a son of old Giwi, chief of the Kaili-kailis. He --old Giwi -- had gone on the previous day with three or four largecanoes laden with rice and manned by men of the Kaili-kaili andArifamu tribes, and we intended taking more canoes and men from theOkeina tribe EN ROUTE.

Our expedition was partly a punitive one, as a tribe named Dobodurahad been continually raiding and slaughtering the Notu tribe on thecoast, with no other apparent reason than the filling of their owncooking pots.

Although the Notus lived on the coast, little was known of them,though they professed friendship to the government. The Doboduras,on the other hand, were a strong fighting tribe a short way off inthe unknown interior, no white men having hitherto penetrated intotheir country: hence they knew nothing about the white man except bydim report.

After we had settled our account with them we intended going in searchof a curious swamp-dwelling tribe, whose feet were reported to bewebbed, like those of a duck, and many were the weird and fantasticrumours that reached our ears concerning them.

The sea soon got very "choppy," and up went our sail, and we flew along

pretty fast. We had left behind us Mount Victory (a volcano whichis always sending forth volumes of dense smoke) some time before,and some time afterward we were joined by a fleet of fourteen largecanoes, most of them belonging to the Okeina tribe, but also includingthe three Kaili-kaili canoes sent off on the previous day.

We all then went on together, and late in the afternoon we landedat a spot near the mouth of the Musa River. We spent the eveningshooting, and had splendid sport, our bag consisting of ducks ofvarious species, pigeon, spur-winged plover, curlew, sandpipers,etc. We also saw wallaby, and numerous tracks of cassowary and wildpig. After some supper on the beach, the Kaili-kaili, Arifamu andOkeina carriers, numbering over one hundred, were drawn up in line,and Monckton told them that he did not want so many carriers. If they(the Okeinas) would like to come, he would not give them more thantobacco, and not axes and knives, which he gave to the Kaili-kaili andArifamu carriers. They unanimously wished to go even without payment,as they were confident that we should have some big fighting, andthey, being a fighting tribe, simply wished to go with us for thisreason. Monckton sent off the carriers that night, so that they couldget a good start of us. It was a bright moonlight night, and it was apicturesque scene when the fleet of canoes started off amidst a regularpandemonium of shouting and chatter. I do not suppose that this quietspot had ever before witnessed such a sight. We were off next morningbefore sunrise, and continued our way in a dead calm and a blazing sun.

We soon caught up with our canoes, which had gone on in advance on theprevious night. A breeze sprang up and we made good progress undersail, and soon left the canoes far behind. We saw plenty of largecrocodiles, and a persevering but much disappointed shark followedus for some distance.

We camped that night just inside the mouth of the Barigi River, on thevery spot where Monckton was attacked the previous year by the Barugatribe. They had made a night attack upon him as he was encamped herewith his police, and had evidently expected to take him by surprise,as they paddled quietly up. But he was ready for them, and gave theleading canoe a volley, with the result that the river was soon fullof dead and wounded men, who were torn to pieces by the crocodiles. Therest fled, but he captured their chief, who was wounded.

Upon our arrival late in the afternoon Acland and I started out withour guns after pigeon, taking our boys and some armed police, as itwas not safe to venture far from the camp without protection.

The vegetation was very beautiful, and there was a wonderful varietyof the palm family. We wandered through very thorny and tangledvegetation. We espied a fire not far off and went to inspect it,but saw no natives, though there were plenty of footprints in the sand.

Towards evening we saw thousands of pigeons settle on a few treesclose by on a small island, but they were off in clouds before we gotnear. They were what is known as the Torres Straits pigeon, and wereof a beautiful creamy-white colour. On the banks of this river werequantities of the curious NIPA palm growing in the water. These palmshave enormous rough pods which hang down in the water, and there werequantities of oysters sticking to the lower parts of their stems. Wedynamited for fish and got sufficient to supply us all with food.

About nine p.m. all the canoes turned up and the camp was soon alivewith noise and bustle. The carriers had had nothing to eat sincethe day before, and poor old Giwi, the chief, squeezed his stomachto show how empty he was, but still managed to giggle in his usualchildish fashion.

They brought with them two runaway carriers who had come from theKumusi district, where many of the miners start inland for the YoddaValley (the gold mining centre). They had travelled for five daysalong the coast, and had hardly eaten anything. They had avoided allvillages EN ROUTE, otherwise they themselves would undoubtedly havefurnished food for others, though there was little enough meat onthem. There were many different tribes in this neighbourhood, andMonckton was far from satisfied as to the safety of our camp if wewere attacked. We sent off a canoe with Okeina men up the river to getprovisions from the Baruga tribe who had attacked Monckton the previousyear, and they now professed friendship to the government. The Okeinaswere friendly with them, but as they paddled away in the darknessMonckton shouted out after them to give him warning when they werecoming back with the Baruga people, and they shouted back what wasthe Okeina equivalent for "You bet we will."

We pitched our mosquito nets under a rough shelter of palm leaves, andI lay awake for some time watching the light of countless fire-fliesand beetles which flashed around me in the darkness, while curiouscries of nocturnal birds on the forest-clad banks and mangroves fromtime to time broke the stillness of the tropical night, and followedme into the land of dreams, from which I was rudely awakened earlythe next morning by clouds of small sandflies, which my mosquito nethad failed to keep out.

We stayed here the following day, and put in part of our timedynamiting for fish at the mouth of the river. It was a curious sightto see the fish blown high into the air as if by a regular geyser. Wegot about three hundred; they were of numerous species, and most ofthem of good size. Many were most brilliantly coloured, indeed thefish in these tropical waters are often the most gorgeous objects innature, and would greatly surprise those who are only used to the fishof the temperate zone. During the day the Okeinas returned. They werefollowed by several canoes of the Baruga tribe with their chief, whobrought us four live pigs tied to poles, besides other native food,which, together with the fish, saved us from using the rice for thepolice and carriers. New Guinea is not a rice-producing country, andthe natives not being used to it, are far from appreciating it. Alittle later some of the Notu tribe from further north arrived bycanoe. They had again been raided by the Dobodura tribe, and manyof them killed and captured. They said the enemy were very strong,and Monckton told us that it was more than likely that they couldraise one thousand to fifteen hundred fighting men. We determinedto resume our journey the next day, and go inland and attack theirvillages. We seemed likely to be in for a good fight, and the policeespecially were highly elated. Old Giwi, who bragged so much abouthis fighting capabilities at starting, shook his head and thought ita tall order, and that we were not strong enough to tackle them.

We left again early on the morning of September 20th, the canoeswith our carriers having gone on the previous night. Early in theafternoon we passed large villages situated amid groves of coconutpalms. These belonged to the Notus, who had been suffering such severe

depredations at the hands of the Doboduras. Shortly before arrivingat our destination we found the carriers waiting for us on shore, theyhaving too much fear of the Notus to reach their villages before us.

We determined to land on the far side of one particularly largevillage. Rifles were handed around, and we strapped on our revolvers,and all got ready in case of treachery. Then came a scene of excitementas we landed in the breakers. Directly we got into shallow water thepolice jumped out, and with loud yells rushed the boat ashore. Therewas still greater excitement getting the canoes ashore amid loudshouting, and one of the last canoes to land, filled, but was carriedashore safely, and only a few bags of rice got wet.

We pitched our camp on a sandy strip of land surrounded on three sidesby a fresh water lagoon, our position being a good one to defend,in case we were attacked. Monckton then took a few police and wentoff to interview the Notus.

After a time he returned with the information that the Notus appearedto be quite friendly, and anxious to unite with us against the commonfoe on the morrow.

Several of them visited our camp during the day and brought us nativefood and pigs, which latter Monckton shot with his revolver, to preventour carriers cooking them alive. It was quite amusing to see the waythe Notus hopped about after each report, some of them running away,and small blame to them, seeing that it was the first time that theyhad ever heard the report of a firearm.

The next morning saw us up long before daybreak, and in the dim lightwe could see small groups of Notu warriors wending their way amid thetall coconuts in the direction of our camp, till about seventy of themhad assembled. They were all fully armed with long hardwood spears,stone clubs and rattan shields (oblong in shape and of wood coveredwith strips of rattan, with a handle at the back), and led the wayalong the beach. The sun soon rose above the sea a very red colour, anda superstitious person might have considered it an omen of bloodshed.

It was hard work walking in the loose sand, and I was glad whenwe branched off into the bush to walk inland. We passed throughalternate forests and open grass land, the forest in places beingquite luxuriant, and new and beautiful plants and rare and gaudybirds and butterflies made one long to loiter by the way. Amongst thepalm family new to me was a very beautiful LICUALA, perhaps the mostbeautiful of all fan-leaved palms, and a climbing palm, one of therattans (KORTHALZIA sp.), with pinkish stems and leaves resemblinga gigantic maidenhair fern, which looked very beautiful scramblingover the trees, together with two or three other species of rattans.

Our combined force was over two hundred strong, the Notus leading theway, then came most of the police, then we three white men, then morepolice, and our Kaili-kaili, Arifamu and Okeina carriers brought upthe rear bearing our tents, baggage and bags of rice.

As we wended our way down the narrow track there were several momentsof excitement, and the Notus several times fell back on to us in alarm,but their fears seemed groundless.

We continued our march for many hours, and just as we came to the

end of a long bit of forest, the Notus came rushing back on to us ingreat confusion. We soon learned the reason. At the end of a grassystretch of country was a village surrounded by a thick grove of coconutand betel-nut palms, and some of the enemy's scouts had been seen,and we heard their distant war-cry, a prolonged "ooh-h-h, ah-h-h,"which was particularly thrilling, uttered as it was by great numbers ofvoices. The Notus all huddled together, then replied in like language,but their cry did not seem to possess the same defiant ring as thatof the Doboduras.

We three took off our helmets and crouched down with the police justinside the forest, with our rifles ready for the expected rush ofthe enemy, having sent the Notus out into the open, hoping therebyto draw the enemy after them. We meant then to give them a lesson,make some captures, and come to terms with their chief. Two or threetimes the Notus came rushing back, and I fully expected to see theDoboduras at their heels, but they were evidently aware that theNotus were not alone, and all I could see was the distant villageand palm-trees shimmering in the quivering heated air, and the headsof the Dobodura warriors crowned with feather head-dresses bobbingabout amid the tall grass, while ever and anon their distant war-cryfloated over the grassy plain.

We decided to rush the village, which we later found was named Kanau,but when we got there we found it deserted. In the centre of thevillage was a kind of small raised platform, on which were rows ofhuman skulls and quantities of bones, the remnants of many a gruesomecannibal feast. Many of these skulls were quite fresh, with smallbits of meat still sticking to them, but for all that they had beenpicked very clean. Every skull had a large hole punched in the side ofthe head, varying in size, but uniform as regards position (to quotefrom Monckton's later report to the government). The explanation forthis we soon learnt from the Notus, and later it was confirmed by ourprisoners. When the Doboduras capture an enemy they slowly torture himto death, practically eating him alive. When he is almost dead theymake a hole in the side of the head and scoop out the brains with akind of wooden spoon. These brains, which were eaten warm and fresh,were regarded as a great delicacy. No doubt the Notus recognised someof their relatives amid the ghastly relics. We rested a short time inthis village, and our people were soon busy spearing pigs and chickens,and looting. The loot consisted of all sorts of household articlesand implements, including wooden pillows, bowls, and dishes, "tapa"cloth of quaint designs, stone adzes, beautiful feather ornaments,"bau-baus" or native bamboo pipes, wooden spears, and a great quantityof shell and dogs'-tooth necklaces.

We saw three or four of the enemy scouting on the edge of the forest,and I was asked to try to pick one off, but before I could firethey had disappeared. Then several Notus ran out brandishing spears,and danced a war-dance in front of the forest, but their invitationwas not accepted. We next saw several armed scouts on a small treeabout five hundred yards away, and we all lined up and gave thema volley; whether we hit any of them or not it is hard to say, butthey dropped down immediately into the long grass. At any rate, itmust have astonished them to hear the bullets whistling round them,even if they were not hit, as it was the first time they had everheard the report of a firearm of any description. Some of the policewent out to sneak through the long grass, and we soon heard shots,and they came back with the spears, clubs and shields of two men

they had killed. They also brought a curious fighting ornament wornon the head, made of upper bills of the hornbill.

We continued our march through some thick forest, and at length cameto the banks of a river, where we suddenly crouched down. An armedman was crawling along the river bed, peering in all directions, andshouting out to his friends on the opposite bank. We were anxious tomake a capture. Monckton suddenly gave the word, and up jumped a dozenpolice in front of me and plunged into the river and gave chase. Ifollowed hard, but the police in front were gradually leaving me farbehind. Till then I always fancied I could run a bit, but I knew betternow. Seeing the man's shield, which he had thrown away in his flight,I at once collared it as a trophy of the chase. Then looking around,I found that I was quite alone, and the thick jungle all around meresounded with the loud angry shouts and cries of the enemy. I foundout afterwards that my friends and the rest had no intention of givingchase, but had been highly amused in watching my poor effort to keepup with the nimble barefooted police. I shall never forget thoseuncomfortable few minutes as I rushed down the track in the directionthe police had taken. Visions arose before me of the part I should playin a cannibal feast, and I expected every minute to feel the sharppoint of a spear entering the small of my back, just as I had beenseeing our people drive their spears clean through some running pigs.

To my dismay I found the track divided, and it was impossible to tellwhich way the police had gone. To turn back was out of the question. Ihad come a good way, and I had no idea where the rest were, and fromthe uproar at the back I imagined the Doboduras were coming down thetrack after me. I hastily decided to go by the old saying, "If yougo to the right you are right," and it was well for me that I did so,as I found out later from the police that if I had gone to the left --well, there would have been nothing left of me, especially after oneDobodura meal, as the enemy were there in full force. As it was, Isoon afterward came up with the police, feeling rather shaky and white.

The police had captured a middle-aged woman, whose face and partof her body were thickly plastered with clay. This was a sign ofmourning. We learnt that she was a Notu woman, who had been capturedsome time previously by the Doboduras. She was much alarmed, andwhined and beat her breasts, and caressed some of the police. Wemade her come on with us, and the rest of the party soon joiningus, we came to another village, which we "rushed," but it, too,was deserted. There was more killing of fowls and pigs, and a sceneof great confusion as our people speared and clubbed them and ranabout in all directions, looting the houses, picking coconuts, andcutting down betel-nut palms, many of them decorating themselveswith the beautifully variegated leaves of crotons and DRACAENAS,some of which were of species entirely new to me. It seemed a bitcurious that these wild cannibals should exhibit such a taste forthese gay and brilliantly coloured leaves and flowers, which theyhad evidently transplanted from forest and jungle to their own village.

We continued our way through bush and open country, our police havingslight skirmishes with small bands of natives. One big Dobodura rushedat Sergeant Kimi with uplifted club, but Kimi coolly knelt down andshot him in the stomach when he was only a few yards off. The round,sharp stone on the club being an extra fine one, I soon exchanged itwith Kimi for two sticks of tobacco (the chief article of trade inNew Guinea, and worth about three half-pence a stick).

Toku, Monckton's boy, and a brother of my boy, Arigita, who carriedhis master's small pea-rifle, shot a man in the back with it as theman fled, and thereafter was a hero among the boys. Arigita wishedto emulate his brother, and begged hard to do some shooting on hisown account with my twelve-bore shot gun, which he carried, and heseemed very much hurt because I would not allow it.

We passed through many more villages, embowered in palm groves, andin each village we saw plenty of human skulls and long sticks withhuman jawbones hanging upon them. On one I counted twenty-five; therewere also long rows of the jawbones of pigs, and a few crocodiles'heads. These villages were all deserted, the natives having fled. Atlength we came to what appeared, from its great size, to be thechief village, which we later learnt was named Dobodura. It extendedsome distance, and stood amid thousands of coconut palms. Here wedetermined to camp, but we found that most of the police had rushedon ahead after the Doboduras, much to Monckton's annoyance, for itwas risky, to say the least, as the enemy might easily have attackedeach party separately. But the police and carriers, now that they had"tasted blood," seemed to get quite out of hand, and their savagerycoming to the surface, they rushed about as if demented. However,they soon returned with more captured weapons of warfare, havingkilled two more men, and they also brought two prisoners, a young manand a young woman. The prisoners looked horribly frightened, havingnever seen a white man before, and they thought they would be eaten:so Constable Yaidi told me.

The man was a stupid looking oaf, and seemed too dazed to speak. Thewoman, however, if she had been washed, would have been quitegood-looking. She had rather the European type of features, and wasquite talkative. She told us that most of her people had gone offto fight a mountain tribe, who had threatened to swoop down on thisvillage. These complications were getting exceedingly Gilbertian incharacter. To begin with, the Kaili-kaili and Arifamu carriers wereafraid of the Okeinas, who in their turn were afraid of the Notus;the Notus feared this Dobodura tribe we were fighting, and theDoboduras seemed to be in fear of a mountain tribe. We ourselveswere by no means sure of the Notus, and kept on guard in case oftreachery. These tribes, we heard, were nearly always fighting,and always have their scouts out.

To return to the prisoners. We showed them how a bullet couldpass clean through a coconut tree, and they seemed to be greatlyimpressed. They were then told to tell their chief to come over thenext morning and interview us, and that we wished to be friendly. Wethen gave them some tobacco and told them they could go, and itwas evident that they were astonished beyond words at their goodfortune. As they passed through our police and carriers, I feel surethat they suspected us of some trick on them.

A bathe in the cool, clear river close by was delightful after a veryhard day, but we, of course, had an armed guard of police around us,and practically bathed rifle in hand, as the growth was dense on theopposite bank.

Our people seemed to be quite enjoying themselves, looting thehouses, and one of the police was chasing a pig in this village,when he was attacked by a man with a club. The policeman was unarmed,

but immediately wrenched the club from the man's hand and smashed hisskull in, and the body lay barely one hundred yards from our tent. Thiswas too tantalizing for our carriers, who came up and begged permissionto eat it, although they knew full well that Monckton had given ordersthat there was to be no cannibalism among them. Needless to remark,the request was refused, but they had the pluck to ask again beforethe expedition was over.

My boy Arigita had often eaten human meat, and as he expressed it inhis quaint pidgin English, "Pig no good, man he very good." It canbe imagined it must be really good, as the Papuan thinks a great dealof pig. We had a good appetite for supper, in spite of the fact thatwe ate it within a few yards of a half-burnt heap of human skulls andbones, which appeared quite fresh. Our various tribes were all campedseparately, and they looked very picturesque round their differentcamp fires, with their spears stuck in the ground in their midst,their clubs and shields by their sides, and the firelight flickeringupon their wild-looking faces.

To our astonishment, our late man prisoner returned and said that hischief wished to see us that night. At once there was a great commotionamong our police and the Notus, who all spoke excitedly together,and were unanimous that this implied treachery, and that behindthe chief would come his men, who would attack us unawares. We alsolearned that it was not their usual habit to make friendly visits atnight. Monckton thought the same, and told the man that if the chief orany of his people came near the camp that night they would be shot. Theman also informed us that all his tribe had returned; no doubt swiftmessengers went after them to bring them back. The man went, and wewaited expectantly for what might happen. Everyone seemed certain thatwe should be attacked, and if so, we had a very poor chance with froma thousand to fifteen hundred well-armed savages making a rush on usin the semi-darkness, as there was no moon, and it was cloudy.

The enemy would rush up and close with our people, and while we shouldnot be able to distinguish friend from foe, we should not be able tofire in the darkness at close quarters. They could then spear and clubus at will. Now we had always heard that Papuans never attack at night,but the police and Notus told us that these Doboduras nearly alwaysattacked at night, and if we had known this before we should mostcertainly have made ourselves a fortified camp outside the village. Butit was too late to think of this now, and we knew that we were in avery awkward position. The fact that they could gather together solarge a force as was alleged, was estimated by Monckton from the sizeof these villages, which showed that they were a very powerful tribe.

The whole police force were put out on sentry duty, as also four orfive Kaili-kailis who had been taught at Cape Nelson to use a rifle.

CHAPTER 8

We Are Attacked By Night.

A Night Attack -- A Little Mistake -- Horrible Barbarities of theDoboduras -- Eating a Man Alive -- A Sinister Warning -- Saved by Rain-- Daylight at Last -- "Prudence the Better Part" -- The Return --Welcome by the Notus -- "Orakaiba."

I was busily engaged in writing my notes of the day, with my rifleby my side, when suddenly a shot rang out, followed by another andanother, then a volley from all the sentries on one side of the camp,and the darkness was lit up by the flashes of their rifles. Then camethe thrilling war-cry, "Ooh-h-h-h! ah-h-h-h!" that made one's blood runcold, especially under such surroundings. All the camp was now in theutmost confusion, and there was a great panic among our carriers, whoflung themselves on the ground yelling with fear. Never was there sucha fiendish noise! I sprang to my feet, flinging my note-book away andpicking up my rifle, and ran back to where Monckton was yelling out:"Fall in, fall in, for God's sake fall in!"

Two houses were hastily set on fire, and instantly became furnaceswhich lit up the surroundings and the tops of the tall coconut palmsover-head, which even in this moment of danger appeared to me likea glimpse of fairyland. I noticed a line of fire-sticks waving inthe darkness outside. They seemed to be slowly advancing, and in theexcitement of the moment I mistook them for the enemy -- and fired!

Luckily, my shot did not take effect, as I soon found out that thesefire-sticks were held by some of our own carriers, who had been toldby Monckton to carry them so that we could distinguish them from theenemy in case we were attacked. Monckton turned to where the Notus,were, and seeing them all decked out in their war plumes, dancingabout among the prostrate carriers, and waving their clubs and spears,naturally took them for Dobodura warriors, and nearly fired at them. Heangrily ordered them to take off their feathers.

Calmness soon settled down again, and we learned that the police hadfired at some Doboduras who were creeping up into the camp. How manythere were we could not tell, but later on we learnt that some ofthem had been killed, and seeing the flash of the rifles, which wasa new experience to them, the rest had retreated for the time being,but soon rallied together for attack that night or in the small hoursof the morning. Knowing that if they once rushed us in the darknesswe should all be doomed for their cooking pots, the state of ourfeelings can be imagined.

The first attempt came rather as a shock to a peaceful novice likemyself, and seeing warriors in full war paint and feathers rushingabout with uplifted club and spear amid our prostrate squirmingcarriers, I had a very strong inclination to bury myself in the nearesthut and softly hum the lines, "I care not for wars and quarrels,"etc. We sat talking in subdued tones for some time, expecting everyminute to hear the thrilling war cry of the Doboduras, but nothing wasto be heard but the crackling of the embers of the burning houses,the low murmur of our people around their camp fire, and the mostdismal falsetto howls of the native dogs in the distance. These howlswere not particularly exhilarating at such a time, and I more thanonce mistook them for the distant war-cry of the Doboduras.

The Papuans, as a rule, do not torture their prisoners for themere idea of torture, though they have often been known to roast aman alive, for the reason that the meat is supposed to taste betterthus. This they also do to pigs, and I myself, on this very expedition,caught some of our carriers making preparations to roast a pig alive,and just stopped them in time. For this reason Monckton would alwaysshoot the pigs brought in for his carriers, but in this case one pig

was overlooked. I have heard of cases of white men having been roastedalive, one case being that of the two miners, Campion and King. Butwe had learnt that this Dobodura tribe had a system of torture thatwas brutal beyond words. In the first place they always try to woundslightly and capture a man alive, so that they can have fresh meatfor many days. They keep their prisoner tied up alive in the house andcut out pieces of his flesh just when they want it, and we were told,incredible as it seems, that they sometimes manage to keep him alivefor a week or more, and have some preparation which prevents him frombleeding to death.

Monckton advised both Acland and myself to shoot ourselves withour revolvers if we saw that we were overwhelmed, so as to escapethese terrible tortures, and he assured us that he should keep thelast bullet in his own revolver for himself. This was my first tasteof warfare. Monckton had had many fights with Papuans, and Acland,besides, had seen many severe engagements in the Boer war, but hesaid he would rather be fighting the Boers than risking the infernaltortures of these cannibals. It all, somehow, seemed unreal to me,and I could hardly realise that I was in serious danger of beingtortured, cooked and eaten. It is impossible to depict faithfullyour weird surroundings. We chatted on for some time, and triedto cheer each other up by making jokes about the matter, such as"This time to-morrow we shall be laughing over the whole affair,"but the depressed tone of our voices belied our words, and it provedto be but a very feeble attempt at joking. We longed for the moon,though that would have helped us little, as it was cloudy.

It is quite unnecessary to go into further details of that awfulnight. I know we all owned up afterward that it was the most tryingnight we had ever spent, and for my part I hope I may never spendanother like it. None of us got a wink of sleep. I tried to sleep,but I was too excited to do so; besides, all my pockets were crammedfull of rifle and revolver cartridges, and I had my revolver strappedto my side, ready for an attack, or in case we got separated in theconfusion that was sure to ensue. At about 3 a.m. it began to rain,the first rain we had had in New Guinea for five or six weeks,and that saved us, for we learned later on that about that timethe Doboduras were gathering together for a rush on our camp, whenthe rain set in, and, odd as it may seem, we heard that they had asuperstition against attacking in the rain. What their reason was,I never got to hear fully, but we were unaware of all these things aswe silently waited and longed for the dawn to break. I never beforeso wished for daylight. It came at length, and what a load it tookoff our minds! We could now see to shoot at all events. We saw theDobodura scouts in the distance on the edge of the forest, but we hadmade up our minds to "heau" (Papuan for "run away") as things weretoo hot for us. There was a scene of great excitement as we left, andfrom the noise our people made they were evidently glad to get away.

The Notus led the way, and they started to hop about, brandishingtheir spears. They did excellent scouting work in the long grass,rushing ahead with their spears poised. This time the rear guardwas formed by some of the police. All the villages we passed throughwere again deserted, but we heard the enemy crying out to one anotherin the forest and jungle, telling each other of our whereabouts. Weexpected an attack, and I often nearly mistook the screeches and criesof cockatoos and parrots and the loud, curious call of the birdsof paradise for some distant war-cry, which was quite excusable,

considering the state of our nerves and the sleepless night wehad spent.

The Notus were great looters, and as we passed through the variousvillages they took everything they could lay their hands on, and ourentrance into a village was marked by a scene of great confusion. Pigsand chickens were speared, betel-nut palms cut down, and huntingnets, bowls, spears and food hauled out of the house, but Moncktonwas very strict in stopping them from cutting houses and coconutpalms down. Ere long we left the last village behind, and haltingjust inside the forest, sent a man up a tree, who reported the lastvillage we had passed through to be full of people. The police hada few shots, but apparently without success.

When we again reached the coast we knew that we were now safe fromattack. Monckton was much puzzled that no attack had been made on usduring the return journey, as he felt sure they were not afraid of us,and after we had killed so many of their people he was certain theywould try for revenge. He also thought they expected us to camp thatnight in their country, and that we were only out hunting for them,as we did not hurry away very fast, but stopped a short time ineach village.

We found the tide high, so we took off our boots and waded most ofthe way, and in time arrived at a creek up which the sea was rushingin and out with great violence. We were helped over by police on eachside of us, who half dragged us across, otherwise we should have beenwashed off our legs, so great was the suction. I was very fond ofthese strong, plucky, good tempered and amusing Papuan police. Oftenwhen we were encamped for the night, I would hear them chaffing eachother in pidgin English for the benefit of the "taubadas" (masters);they would slyly turn their heads to see if we were amused, and howdelighted they were if they saw us smile at their quaint English,

In the evening we found ourselves back in the Notu villages, and weremet by many Notus bearing coconuts, which they opened and handed tous. I suppose these were meant as refreshment for the victors, for assuch they no doubt regarded us, as well as saviours of their tribe. Icould quite imagine the Notu warriors bragging on their return oftheir own deeds of valour, although all the killing was done by thepolice. Meanwhile, however, as we passed through the squatting crowds,we were greeted with loud cries of "orakaiba" (peace).

CHAPTER 9

On the War-Trail Once More.

Further Expedition Planned -- Thank-offerings of Notu Chiefs --The Voyage -- A Gigantic Flatfish -- Negotiating a Difficult Bar-- Moat Unhealthy Spot in New Guinea -- Hostility of Natives --Precautions at Night -- Catching Ground Sharks and a "Groper" --Shark-flesh a Delicacy to the Natives -- Wakened by a War Cry -- AFalse Alarm -- A Hairbreadth Escape -- Between "Devil and Deep Sea"-- Dangers of the Goldfield -- Two Miners Eaten Alive -- UnexpectedVisit from a White Man -- "Where's that Razor?" -- Crime of CuttingDown a Coconut Tree -- Walsh's Camp -- Torres Straits Pigeons -- MyBoy an ex-Cannibal -- A Probable Trap -- Relapse into Cannibalism

of our Own Allies -- Narrow Escape from a New Guinea Mantrap --Attack on a Village -- Second Visit to Dobodura -- Toku's Exploit --Interview with our Prisoners -- Reasons for Cannibalism -- The NightAttack on our Camp and Enemies' Fear of our Rifles described by ourPrisoners -- Bravery of one of our Carriers -- Treatment of a Prisoner.

"Yes," said Monckton on our return to the coast, "we have got topunish those Doboduras at all costs. They are the worst brutes I'vecome across in New Guinea." And Monckton knew what he was talkingabout, as he had been a resident magistrate in British New Guinea formany years and had travelled all over the country, and had a widerexperience of the cannibals than any man living.

This tribe (as has already been mentioned), when they capture aprisoner, tie him to a post, keep him alive for days, and meanwhilefeed on him slowly by cutting out pieces of flesh, and prevent hisbleeding to death with a special preparation of their own concoction,and finally, when he is nearly dead, they make a hole in the side ofthe head and feed on the hot fresh brains.

Both Acland and I myself fully agreed with Monckton, as we were notby any means grateful to the Doboduras for giving us the worst frightof our lives. We had, it is true, killed a good many of them, but werecognised the fact that our force was insufficient to hold its own,much less to punish these brutal tribesmen. So we determined to journeyup north and get help from the magistrate of the Northern Divisionon the Mambare River, before returning to the Dobodura country.

That evening four Notu chiefs came into camp to thank us for killingtheir enemies, and they brought with them presents of dogs' teeth andshell necklaces, and seemed greatly excited, all talking at once,each trying to out-talk his fellows, and wagged their heads at usin turn. We left very early the next morning in our whaleboat forthe Kumusi River, but left all our carriers and stores with most ofthe police behind in one of the Notu villages to await our return,as we now felt sure that we could trust the Notu tribe.

It was a hot and uneventful voyage. A fish which looked like anenormous sole, but which was larger than the whaleboat, jumped high inthe air not many yards away. Toward evening we arrived opposite thebar of the Kumusi River, and we had a very uncomfortable few minutesgetting through the breakers into the river, for if we had beenupset we should soon have become food for the sharks and crocodiles,which literally swarmed here. We got through the worst part safely,but then stuck fast on a small sand-bank, and one or two good-sizedbreakers half-filled the boat; but we all jumped out and hauled heroff the sand into the deep, calm waters beyond.

After rowing up the river a short distance, we landed at a spotwhere there was a trader's store, looked after by an Australiannamed Owen. From here miners go up the river to the gold fields inthe Yodda Valley, and cutters are constantly putting in at this storewith miners and provisions.

This district has the reputation of being one of the most unhealthyspots in New Guinea, and the natives round here are none too friendly,and hate the government and their police, so that during the lastthree years, three or four resident magistrates in the locality haveeither been murdered or have died of fever.

We arranged to have our meals with Owen at the store, and we slept in arough palm-thatched shed with a raised flooring of split palm-trunks,which was very hard and rough to sleep on, and gave me a sleeplessnight. We got two of our police to sleep in front of the doorway,as it was more than likely that the natives might attempt to murderus. These precautions may have been justified as, in the middle of thenight both Acland and I myself saw two natives peering into the hut.

The next day we sent off a messenger to the northern station for morepolice, and it was fully a week before they arrived. Meanwhile we spentour time dynamiting and catching fish. We caught some large groundsharks fully four hundred pounds in weight, and also a "gorupa"("groper"), a very large fish of about three hundred and fiftypounds. This fish is the terror of divers in these parts they fearit more than any shark. Both shark and fish proved most acceptableto our police; they are especially fond of shark.

One morning about five o'clock I was aroused by hearing a shrillwar-cry close by. The police rushed up with their rifles and told uswe were attacked. It can be imagined it did not take us long to buckleon our revolvers and seize our rifles and run, half-asleep as we were,in the direction of the noise, which was repeated from time to timein a very ferocious manner. On turning a sharp corner by the river,instead of warlike warriors, we beheld about a dozen natives haulingin the sharkline we had left baited in the water the previous evening,with a very large shark at the end of it. Being greatly excited theyhad from time to time yelled out their war-cry. We felt very foolishat being roused from our slumbers for nothing, but still there wassome slight consolation in knowing that even the police were deceived.

Owen, the Australian, not long before had had rather an amusing,and at the same time exciting, adventure with a large crocodile ina swamp close to the store. He noticed it fast asleep in the swamp,and so waded out to it through the mud, making no noise whatever. Whenwithin a few yards of the saurian, he threw a double charge of dynamiteclose up to it, and then turned to fly. He found he could not move,but was stuck firmly in the mud. His struggles and yells for help hadmeanwhile awoke the crocodile, which came for him with open jaws. Itlooked as if it was a case of either being blown to pieces by thedynamite or furnishing a meal for the crocodile.

Luckily the fuse was a long one, and the crocodile floundered abouta good deal in the mud ere it could reach him. Some friendly nativesrushed in and dragged him out just as the crocodile reached him. Thecrocodile fled in one direction and the dynamite went off in another,but Owen and the natives only just avoided the explosion.

Owen told me that there were about fifty miners in the goldfieldsof the Yodda Valley, but that most of them were beginning to leave,although there is plenty of gold to be got. The climate is a bad one,and provisions, etc., are very dear, and so gold has to be got invery large quantities to pay. As the miners decrease, there is boundto be trouble with the natives, who are very treacherous. The miners,who are nearly all Australians or New Zealanders, have generally towork in strong bands with their rifles close at hand.

Only a short time ago the two miners, Campion and King (whom Ihave elsewhere mentioned), while working in the bed of a creek,

had just traded with some apparently friendly natives for a pig andsome yams, and sat down for a smoke and a rest, thinking that thenatives had left, but these cunning cannibals were awaiting justsuch an opportunity, and were lying hid amidst the thick foliageclothing the steep banks of the creek. Suddenly, making a rush, theygot between the miners and their rifles, and speared both in thelegs, taking care not to kill them, as the cannibals in this partof New Guinea consider that meat tastes better, be it pig or man,when cooked alive. They then tied them with ropes of rattan to longpoles and carried them off to their village, where they were bothroasted alive over a slow fire. These facts were gathered from someprisoners afterwards captured by a government force. A strong bandof miners also attacked their villages, and gave no quarter.

On the fifth day of our stay here one of our police came rushing upto us excitedly with the information that a whaleboat was in sight,and we knew that a white man would be in it. There was at once acry from Monckton, "After you with the razor, Acland." Now it hadbeen understood that none of us were to shave during the expedition,and consequently we had grown large crops of beards and whiskers,and looked a veritable trio of cut-throats. However, it appearedthat Acland had smuggled away a razor-possibly for all we knew toenable him to captivate some fair Amazon, who might otherwise havethought he was only good for her cooking pot. Half-an-hour later threeclean-shaven individuals met a tall unshaven man as he stepped outof his boat on to the beach, and his first remark was, "Oh, I say,(reproachfully) you fellows, where's that razor!" It was Walsh,Assistant Resident Magistrate for the Northern Division, and none ofus had met him before.

He and another Englishman, a celebrated trader named Clark (he wasan old resident, well-known in New Guinea), with a force of police,were returning from an expedition down the coast, and were at presentencamped about sixteen miles south of here, near some small islandsknown as Mangrove Islands.

Leaving Clark in charge, Walsh had come over with a small cutter, whichwe promptly hired to carry the extra stores of rice and provisionswhich we had purchased from Owen. It is astonishing the amount ofrice it takes to feed one hundred carriers and twenty-five nativepolice during a six weeks' exploring expedition.

Two days later ten police arrived, sent down at Monckton's requestfrom the Mambare or Northern Station. These, with Walsh's nine, madean addition of nineteen police to our force. A celebrated old Mambarechief named Busimaiwa arrived at the same time, together with manyof his tribe, which was friendly to the government. I say celebratedbecause he was the leader in the murder of the resident magistrateof the Northern Division, the late Mr. -- -- , together with allhis police. But he has since been pardoned by the government. Themagistrate and his police were killed through treachery, being unarmedat the time. They were all eaten, but -- -- 's skull was afterwardsrecovered. Old Busimaiwa, had a son in our police force.

We were off early the next morning, we four white men and most of thepolice going in the two whaleboats, while the rest walked along theshore. These latter had to pass through many small villages on theway, but the inhabitants did not wait to find out whether they werefriends or foes, and the police found the villages empty.

From the whaleboat I suddenly noticed a tall coconut palm come fallingto the ground, and I immediately called Monckton's attention to thefact. He was very much annoyed, as he knew that it was cut down by someof our party, contrary to regulations. According to government laws,to cut down a coconut tree in New Guinea is a crime, and a seriousone at that. Even when attacking a hostile village it is strictlyforbidden, though one may loot houses, kill pigs, out down betel-nutpalms, and even kill the inhabitants. But the coconut-palm is sacredin their eyes.

However, the government has an eye to the future of the country,as, besides being the main article of food in a country whose foodsupply is limited, the coconut tree means wealth to the country,when it gets more settled and the natives are able to do a largebusiness in copra with the white traders.

That evening, when in camp, we discovered the culprit to be no less apersonage than the sergeant of Walsh's police, who was in command ofthe shore party, his sole excuse for breaking the law being that hethought it too much trouble to climb the tree after the coconuts. Whenthe whole of the police force had been drawn up in line Monckton,as leader of the expedition, cut the red stripes from the blue tunicof the sergeant, and he was reduced to the ranks.

After a rough voyage, there being a good swell on, we arrived atWalsh's camp on the mainland, opposite the Mangrove Islands, andhere we found Clark, whom I had met before in Samarai. The campwas situated in the midst of a small native village, and later onthe inhabitants and others turned up armed with their stone clubs,spears and shields, and offered to help us. They also wanted us togo and fight their enemies a short way inland from here. Monckton'sreply was not over polite. He ended by ordering them at once to clearout of their village, as he had no use for them.

Toward evening we all went pigeon shooting, as thousands of TorresStraits pigeons flock round here at twilight and settle chiefly onthe small islands close to the mainland. We had excellent sport. Thebirds flew overhead, and we shot a great number between us.

Three of us white men were down with fever that evening. As thecutter had not arrived with the rice, etc., from the Kumusi River,we had to remain here the whole of the next day.

Toward evening we again went pigeon shooting, each of us takingpossession of a small island, but the birds were not nearly asplentiful as yesterday, and small bags were the result. On theseislands were plenty of houses, which we heard were deserted a few weeksago, owing to the frequent attacks of hungry cannibals on the mainland.

On my island I discovered several very fresh-looking human skullsand bones. My boy, Arigita, regaled me with yarns while we waited forthe pigeons. He told me he had often eaten human meat, and expressedthe same opinion on the matter as the ex-cannibals I had met in theinterior of Fiji had done. I had good reason for suspecting the youngrascal of having partaken of human meat since he had been my servant.

I noticed plenty of double red hibiscus bushes on these islands,and I came across a new and curious DRACAENA with extremely short

and broad red and green leaves, that was certainly worth introducinginto cultivation.

We continued our journey in the whaleboats the next morning, and aftergoing some distance we heard a shout, and saw a man on the beachfrantically waving to us, but as he would not venture near enough,we had to go on without finding out what was the matter. Shortlyafterward we heard three loud blasts on a conch shell, which isalways used to call natives together, but the bush being thick, wecould see nothing. I myself believe it was a trap, the man evidentlytrying to get us ashore, so that his tribe might attack us. However,our shore party, who came along later, saw no sign of any natives.

Towards evening we landed at the spot where we had started inlandlast time against the Doboduras. Here we determined to camp. Weimmediately sent down to Notu for our carriers and the rest of thepolice, who arrived after dark, all seeming delighted and relievedto be with us once more. We learned that after we had left the Notupeople killed and ate two runaway carriers from the Kumusi, and afterindulging in a great feast, fled and deserted their villages, so ourlate cannibalistic allies evidently feared retribution at our hands.

These carriers, belonging to the miners in the Kumusi and Mambaredistricts, are constantly running away, and they then try to work theirway down the coast to Samarai, from whence they are shipped. But theynever get there, being always killed and eaten on the way. One of ourown carriers had died at Notu, but the police had seen to it that hewas properly buried. However, it is more than likely that he was dugup after they had left, and eaten.

The cutter arrived early the next morning.. The rice was soon landed,and we started off along the same track as before. We now had overforty police, and although we did not this time have the assistanceof the Notus, we had many more carriers.

During this march our police luckily discovered in time some slantingspears set as a man trap, which projected from the tall grass overthe narrow track. Such spears are hard to see, especially for anyonetravelling at a good speed, and I was told that the points werepoisoned. Another trap, common in New Guinea, is to place a fallentree across the track and dig a deep pit on the other side from whichthe enemy is expected to come. This pit is filled with sharp uprightspears, and then lightly covered over so that a man stepping over thetree, which hides the ground on the other side, will fall into the pit.

After marching for some distance, we came to the end of a bitof forest, from whence we could see the first hostile village. Wefrightened away several armed scouts. The village appeared to be fullof armed men in full war-paint and plumes, so we divided our forceinto two parties, each cutting round through the forest on both sidesof the village, in an endeavour to surprise the enemy. We were onlypartially successful, as the Doboduras discovered our plans justin time. Though we rushed the village, and a few shots were fired,we only succeeded in capturing two old men and a small boy, who werenot able to get away in time. The houses were full of household goods,in spite of our previous raid, when this and other villages were welllooted by our people, so we were evidently not expected to return.

We did not stay long here, but soon resumed our march. It was a very

hot day, and after walking through the open bits of grass country,it was always pleasant to get into the cool and shady forest, fullof delicate ferns, rare palms and orchid-laden trees. We passed onthrough two other villages, with their gruesome platforms of grinningskulls as the only vestige of humanity.

At length we came to the large village, which is named Dobodura,after the tribe, and in which we had spent such a horrible night onour last visit. The village was full of yelling warriors. Rushing up,we shot several who showed fight. Most of them, however, fled beforeus. Toku, Monckton's boy, and brother of my boy Arigita, again madeuse of his master's pea-rifle, but this time he did not meet withany success, and very narrowly escaped getting a spear through him.

A short time before, when Monckton was out on an expedition, Toku wascarrying his master's revolver, but happened to lag behind the rest ofthe party without being noticed, when a man jumped out of the jungleand picked young Toku up in his arms, covering up his mouth so that hecould not cry out, and proceeded to carry him off, no doubt intendingto have a live roast. But Toku, managing to draw Monckton's revolver,shot him dead right through the head, and Monckton, hearing the shot,turned back, and soon discovered young Toku calmly sitting on hisenemy's dead body. But, alas! the hero had to suffer in the hour ofhis triumph, as Monckton ordered him to be flogged for lagging behindthe rear guard of police.

Besides killing several of the Doboduras, we also took severalprisoners, both men and women. We rested here, but several of thepolice, whose fighting blood was now fully roused, went out with someof our armed natives, skirmishing in one or two parties till late,and we could hear shots in all directions. As we found out later,they had slain several more of the enemy, with no loss to themselves.

We chose a splendid camp, with the river (which we were informed wasthe Tamboga River) on one side.

The forest trees were felled on the other side, forming a strongbarrier, very different from our last camp here in the centre of thevillage, and without any defences at all. We had a most refreshingbathe in the river, but kept our rifles close at hand, as the enemycould have easily speared us from the reeds on the opposite bank.

After supper we interviewed the prisoners, and we now learned thereal sequel to our last visit and what a narrow escape we had thatnight from being all massacred. It appeared that our fighting duringthe daytime astonished them much, as they could not understand how wecould kill at such a distance, rifles being quite new to them. Ourfame soon reached a large village much further on, and they saidto the Dobodura people: "Ye are all cowards; we will show you thatwe can destroy these strange people." They started off that nightand surrounding our camp on all sides, crept up for a rush; but,luckily for us, our sentries saw some of them and fired. The firstshot killed one of them, and others were hit. Then came the blaze ofmany rifles. This terrified them and they fled. The horrible noise ofthe rifles and the flashes of fire in the darkness astonished them, butwhat made them depart for good was seeing one of their men fall at thefirst shot. It was a very lucky shot, and it probably saved our livesthat night. When asked why they raided the Notus, the prisoners saidthat they were friends until two years ago, when they quarrelled, and

had been constantly fighting since. In particular they now blamed theNotus for the late drought, which they said was due to their sorcery,the result being that they were forced to live on sago alone, and tovary this diet were compelled to get human meat.

I was the only one out of five white men not down with fever, but Iwas glad that we passed a quiet night, with no attack on the camp. Inthe morning one of our carriers, who ventured less than fifty yardsbeyond the barrier, received a spear through his left arm and anotherthrough his side, and though I am almost afraid to relate it forfear of being thought guilty of exaggeration, the man plucked thespear out of his side in a moment, and, hurling it back, killed hisopponent. I ventured outside and proved the truth of the man's story,by finding the Dobodura man transfixed with his own spear. Both ourman's wounds were bad ones, but he did not seem to mind them at all,and was for some time surrounded by a crowd of admiring natives.

We started off early in search of a large village of which a prisonertold us, but had not gone far when a man jumped out of the long grassand threw a spear at one of our carriers, only a few paces in frontof me. Fortunately he missed him, but only by a few inches. As hewas preparing to throw another spear, one of our men, whom he had notnoticed, owing to an abrupt bend in the narrow track, which broughthim close to the spearman, sprang forward and buried his stone clubin the man's head, who sank down without a groan.

It was cloudy, but very close, and we passed through open grasscountry, bounded on each side by tall forest, in which bird-lifeseemed plentiful, cockatoos and parrots making a great noise. Birdsof paradise were also calling out with their very noticeable andpeculiar falsetto cry.

After going some distance we catechized the prisoners, and whilean old man declared that there was a large village ahead, the twowomen prisoners said that the track was only a hunting one and ledto the mountains.

The old man evidently wanted to get us away from his village, toenable his tribe to return, but the women, not being so loyal, toldus the truth, no doubt because they found the forced marching on ahot day a little too much for them. We sat down for a consultation,but hearing a loud outcry in the rear, I suddenly came across about adozen of the now indignant police pelting the old man with darts madeout of a peculiar kind of grass, which grew around here. The old man,who was handcuffed, hopped high in the air, uttering loud yells everytime a dart hit him, so I imagined they hurt, and though I, too, feltmuch annoyed, I had to put a stop to this cruel sport, when one ofthe aggrieved policemen cried out to me: "Taubada (master), why youstop him get hurt? This fellow he ki-ki (eat) you if he get chance."

CHAPTER 10

The Return From Dobodura.

Horrible Fate of one of our Enemies -- Collecting in Cannibal --Haunted Forest -- I Shoot a new Kingfisher, and a Bird of Paradise

-- Natives' Interest in Bird-Stuffing -- Return Journey begun --Tree-house in a Notu Village -- Peacemaking Ceremonies -- Notu Villagedescribed -- Our Allies sentenced for Cannibalism -- Parting withWalsh and Clark.

We decided to return, and sent off a strong body of police in advanceto surprise some of the surrounding villages. On the way back we foundthe man who was brained by one of our carriers still breathing. Hewas a ghastly sight, with his brains projecting out, and he was beingeaten alive by swarms of red ants, which almost hid his body and foundtheir way into his eyes, ears and nose. By the convulsions that fromtime to time shook the man's body, he was evidently still conscious,but could not possibly have lived for more than a few hours at most,after our thus finding him. New Guinea, like most tropical countries,had its full share of these pests (ants), some species of whichactually make webs, and, by way of supplementing the web itself,work leaves in.

Acland, who had been suffering all day long from bad fever, nowcollapsed and could walk no further, but had to be carried in ahammock. When we got back to our old camping ground, I took an armedguard of police and went in search of birds for my collection, inthe adjoining forest, and shot a new kingfisher (TANYSIPTERA) and abird of paradise (PARADISEA INTERMEDIA). It was rather exciting work,as one went warily through the thick growth, from whence might issuea spear any minute, and I held on to my rifle all the time, except,of course, when I saw a bird, and then I made a quick change to myshotgun, lest I should prove a case of the hunter hunted.

On my return I had a large crowd of carriers around me watching meskin my birds, while Arigita explained everything to them in lordlyfashion, only too pleased to get the chance of being listened to,while he expounded to them his superior knowledge. What he told themI, of course, could not tell, but he informed me that when I put thefinal stitch in the nostrils of the birds, my audience declared thatI did this to prevent the birds from breathing and so one day comingto life again. When the wise Arigita asked them how this could be,since they had seen me take out the body and brains, they scoffed athim and said that spirits would come inside the skins so that theycould sing again.

Monckton, meanwhile, had made a raid on the native gardens and broughtin quite a lot of taro. The police had killed several more Doboduras,and in one place they had quite a fight. Our old man prisoner escapedin the night, although he was handcuffed.

We returned to the coast the next day, as there seemed no chance of ourcoming to terms with these Doboduras. Our only chance would have beento defeat them in a big engagement. They seemed too frightened of usto stand up for a big fight, but hid themselves in the bush, and werethus hard to get at. We left ten police behind to trap the natives,and, thinking we had left, a few of them returned to the village,and the police shot four more of them and soon caught up with us,bringing in the shields, stone clubs and spears of the slain.

During both these expeditions we had killed a good many of thesepeople, and it ought to be a lesson to them to leave the Notus alonein future, although there is little doubt that the Notus themselvesmake cannibalistic raids on some of their weaker neighbours. I did

not like the looks of the Notus, and they, as well as the Doboduras,have a most repellent type of features, and look capable of anykind of cruelty and treachery. They are very different from thegentle-looking Kaili-kailis.

The sea was very rough, and it was exciting work launching thecanoes. One was thrown clean out of the water by a breaker. Themajority of the carriers and half the police went round by the beach,but we in the two whaleboats had some exciting moments in the roughsea, though with the sails up we made good progress. We passed twoof the canoes partially wrecked, and apparently in great difficulties.

We eventually landed long after dark in Eoro Bay, some distance theother side of the large Notu village, near which we had previouslycamped. We landed opposite a good-sized village belonging to theNotu tribe, from which all the inhabitants fled on our approach. Wewandered about the village with flaming torches, looking out for hutsto pass the night in, as it was too late to pitch camp. But unhappilythe huts were full of lice, and it was impossible to get any sleep.

I saw here for the first time one of the curious native tree houses. Itwas high up in a tall pandanus tree, and had a very odd appearance. Wespent the whole of the next day in this village, while our carriersbrought in and mended their canoes. They, too, had a very rough timeof it, but no lives were lost.

During the day I witnessed a very interesting ceremony, which Itake the liberty of describing in Monckton's own words, given in hisreport to the Government. He says: "October 7th. Found that some ofthe mountain people had been out to Notu and wished to make peacewith them. The Notu people had also ascertained that the Dobodurahad retreated into the large sago swamp, and were quite certain thatthey had no danger to fear from them for some time to come. Theyalso said that after the police had departed they would very likelybe able to re-establish their ancient friendly relations with theDobodura. A peace-offering was brought from the mountain people,which the Notu people asked me to receive for them. The ceremony wasstrange to me, and had several peculiar features. Two minor chiefscame to where I was sitting and sat down. About twenty men thenapproached and drove their spears into the ground in a circle withthe butts all leaning inwards. Many of the spears had a small piecebroken off at the butt end. From these spears were then hung clubs,spears and shields, and native masks and fighting ornaments. An oldchief then said they had given me their arms. Next they placed cloth,fishing nets and spears and other native ornaments inside the circle,and the same old chief said they had given me their property. Afterthis ten pigs, five male and five female, were brought and placedinside the ring with a quantity of sago and a little other food. Thenfollowed cooking vessels full of cooked food. The old chief then said,'We have given you all we have as a sign we are now the people of theGovernment.' I gave them a good return present, and told them thatthey were at liberty to take any articles they wanted or their pigsback again, but this they absolutely refused to do, saying that itwould destroy the effect of what they had done. The female prisonerswere now sent back to Dobodura with a message to the Dobodura, thatI should return in a few months and make peace with them, should theyin the meantime refrain from murdering the coastal people, but shouldthey persist in their raiding I should return and handle them stillmore severely." In return we gave them presents of axes, knives,

beads, tobacco, etc., which were laid down on the top of each pig.

Monckton very kindly presented Acland and myself with all the clubs,native masks, "tapa" cloth and ornaments, and the pigs and other foodcame in very useful for our police and carriers, as our rice supplywas getting low.

This was a very picturesque village, shaded by thousands of coconutand betel nut palms and large spreading trees, among which was a veryfine tree, with very beautiful green and yellow variegated leaves(ERYTHRINA sp.). There was also a great variety of DRACAENAS, stripedand spotted with green, crimson, white, pink and yellow.

In most of these villages there were many curious kinds of trophies --crossed sticks, standing in the middle of the village, with a centrepole carved and painted in various patterns, and with a fringe offibre placed near the top. Hanging on these sticks were the skullsand jawbones of men, pigs and crocodiles. I went out in the afternoonwith gun and rifle, and saw several wallabies, but could not get ashot at them on account of the tall grass.

In the evening the chiefs of the large Notu village who had in ourabsence killed and eaten the two runaway carriers, visited us infear and trembling. Monckton told them they must give up to us theactual murderers and send them up to the residency at Cape Nelson(or Tufi) within the next three weeks. He did not ask for thosethat ate them. Possibly one hundred or more partook of the feast,and for this they could hardly be blamed, as, being cannibals, itis quite natural that they should eat fresh meat when they got thechance. Indeed, our own carriers could not understand why we wouldnot allow them to eat the bodies of those we had slain.

The next morning we five white men parted company, Walsh and Clark,with the Mambare and their own police, returning to the north,while Monckton, Acland and I went southward again to continue ourexplorations in another direction.

Our Discovery of Flat-Footed Lake Dwellers.

CHAPTER 11

Our Discovery of Flat-Footed Lake Dwellers.

Rumours at Cape Nelson of a "Duckfooted" People in the Interior --Conflicting Opinions -- Views of a Confirmed Sceptic -- Start of theExpedition -- Magnificence of the Vegetation -- Friendliness of theBarugas -- The "Orakaibas" (Criers of "Peace") -- Tree-huts eighty feetfrom the ground-Loveliness of this part of the Jungle -- Descriptionof its Plants -- A Dry Season -- First Glimpse of Agai Ambu Huts --Remarkable Scene on the Lake -- Flight of the Agai Ambu in Canoes --Success at Last -- A Voluntary Surrender -- The Agai Ambu Flat-footed,not Web-footed -- Sir Francis Winter's subsequent Visit and fullerDescription of these People -- Their Physical Appearance, Houses,

Canoes, Food, Speech and Customs -- My Account Resumed -- MakingFriends with the Agai Ambu -- A Country of Swamps -- Second AgaiAmbu Village -- Extraordinary Abundance and Variety of Water-fowl --Strange Behaviour of an Agai Ambu Women -- Disposal of the Dead inMid-lake Food of the Agai Ambu -- Their Method of Catching Ducksby Diving for them -- An Odd Experience -- Mosquitos and Fever --Last View of Agai Ambu -- An Amusing FINALE.

Many were the wild and fantastic rumours we had heard at the Residencyat Cape Nelson, on the north-east coast of British New Guinea,concerning a curious tribe of natives whose feet were reported to bewebbed like those of a duck, and who lived in a swamp a short way inthe interior, some distance to the north of us. I myself had at firstbeen inclined to sneer at these reports, but Monckton, the ResidentMagistrate, with his superior knowledge of the Papuans, as the nativesof New Guinea are called, was sure that there was some truth in thereports, as the Papuan who has not come much in contact with thewhite man is singularly truthful though guilty of exaggeration.

I knew this, but I had in mind the case of the Doriri tribe, wholived in the interior a little to the south of us. These Doriri (whohad had the kindly forethought to send us word that they were comingdown to pay us a visit to eat us, for the Papuan, though a savage,is often most suave and courteous and by no means lacking in humour),were reported to us as having many tails, but needless to say whenwe made some prisoners, we were scarcely disappointed to find thatthe said tails protruded from the back of the head (in much the samefashion as the Chinaman's pigtail); in this case each man had manytails, which were fashioned by rolling layers of bark from a certaintree -- closely allied, I believe to the "paper tree" of Australia --round long strands of hair.

We three white men had many a long talk as to whether theseswamp-dwellers were worth going in search of, but I soon came round toMonckton's way of thinking. Acland, alone, however, maintained to thelast that the whole thing was a myth, and jokingly said to Monckton:"When you find these duck-footed people, you had better see that Walkerdoes not take them for birds, and shoot and skin a couple of specimensof each sex and add them to his collection." (For my chief hobby inthis and many other countries all over the world consisted in addingto my fine collections of birds and butterflies in the old country.)

As we three, with our twenty-five native police and four servantboys, rowed up the Barigi River in our large government whaleboat,on our way to search for these "duck-footed" people, I could not helpbeing struck with the very great beauty of the scene. Giant treesladen with their burden of orchids, parasites and dangling lianas,surrounded us on both sides, their wide-spreading branches forminga leafy arcade far over our heads, while palms in infinite variety,intermixed with all sorts of tropical forms of vegetation, and rareferns, grew thickly on the banks.

Some distance behind us came our large fleet of canoes, bearing ourbags of rice and over one hundred carriers, and as they paddled downthe dark green oily waters of this natural arcade, with much shoutingand the splashing of many paddles, it made a scene which is with meyet and is never to be forgotten. As we proceeded, the river got morenarrow, and fallen trees from time to time obstructed our way. We atlength landed at a spot where we were met by a large number of the

Baruga tribe, who brought us several live pigs tied to poles, andgreat quantities of sago, plantains and yams. They had expected us,as we had camped in their country the previous night. They had been"licked" into friendliness by Monckton, who less than a year ago (aselsewhere mentioned) had sunk their canoes, and together with the aidof the crocodiles, which swarm in this river, had annihilated a largeforce of them. And now to show their friendliness they were preparedto do us a good turn, by helping us to find these duck-footed people,with whom (they told us) they were well acquainted.

Oyogoba, the chief of the Baruga tribe, came to meet us. He assured usof the friendliness of his people, and himself offered to accompanyus. His arm had been broken in the encounter with Monckton and hispolice, and Monckton had immediately afterwards set it himself. Itnow seemed quite sound.

We soon resumed our journey, on foot, passing through very variedcountry, plains covered with tall grass and bounded by forest,through which at times we passed. At other times we had to force ourway through thick swamps in which the sago-palm abounded, from thetrunks of which the natives extract sago in great quantities.

About mid-day we arrived at a fair-sized village belonging to theBaruga tribe. It was surrounded by a tall stockade of poles, and aswe entered it, the women sitting in their huts greeted us with theirincessant cries of "orakaiba, orakaiba" (peace). On this account thenatives of this part of New Guinea are generally termed "Orakaibas"by other tribes.

The houses here seemed larger and better built than most Papuan housesthat I had hitherto seen, and there were many curious tree-houseshigh up among the branches of some very large, trees in the village,some being fully eighty feet from the ground. They had broad laddersreaching up to them, and looked very curious and picturesque. Theseladders are made of long rattans from various climbing palms. Theserattans, of which there were three double strings, are twisted insuch a way as to support the pieces of wood which form the steps. Inone case a ladder led from the ground in the usual way to a housebuilt in a small tree about thirty feet from the ground, but a secondladder connected this house with another one in a much larger treeabout eighty feet off the ground. I climbed the first ladder, butthe second one swayed too much.

These tree-houses axe built partly as look-out houses, from which theapproach of the enemy is discovered, and partly as vantage pointsfrom which the natives hurl down spears at their opponents belowwhen attacked.

Resuming our journey, after a brief halt in this village, we sooncame to the Barigi River again, which we crossed, camping in a smalldeserted village close by. Here I noticed several more tree-houses inthe larger trees. This had been a very hot day, even for New Guinea,and I could not resist taking a most refreshing bathe in the river,though I must confess I was glad to get out again, having rather adread of the crocodiles, which infest parts of this river, thoughthey were not nearly so numerous up here as in the lower reaches ofthe river which we had traversed in the morning.

We were up the following morning before sunrise, and were all

much excited at the prospect before us of discovering this curioustribe. This day would show whether or no our journey was to provefruitless. Soon after leaving the village we entered a dense forest,the growth of which was wonderfully beautiful. Tall PANDANUS trees,some of them supported by a hundred and more long stilted roots, whichrose many feet above our heads, reared their crowns of ribbon-likeleaves above even some of the giants of the forest. Palms of all shapesand sizes, dwarfed, tall, slender and thick, surrounded us on everyside, and at least three different species of climbing palms scrambledover the tallest trees. The tree trunks were hidden by climbing fernsand by a white variegated fleshy-leafed POTHOS. Orchids, though notnumerous, were by no means scarce on the branches of some of thelarger trees, and were intermixed with many curious and beautifulferns. There were many large-leafed tropical plants somewhat resemblingthe HELICONIAS and MARANTAS of tropical America.

Flowers were not very plentiful, but here and there the forestwould be literally ablaze with what is said to be the most showyflowering creeper in the world, huge bunches of large flowers of sovivid a scarlet that Monckton and I agreed no painting could do themjustice. It is sometimes known as the DALBERTIA, but its botanical nameis MUCUNA BENNETTI. It has been found impossible to introduce it intocultivation. Among other flowers were some very large sweet-scentedCRINUM lilies and some very pretty pink flowering BEGONIAS, with theirleaves beautifully mottled with silver. Here and there we would noticea variegated CROTON or pink-leafed DRACAENA, but these were uncommon.

As we proceeded, I noticed that in spite of the very dry weatherwe had been having, the ground each moment became more moist, whichindicated that we were approaching the swamps we had heard about. Itwas a rough track over fallen trees and dry streams, but before longwe passed along the banks of a creek full of stagnant water.

We at length left the forest and found ourselves in open country,covered with reeds and rank grass, through which we slowly wendedour way. Suddenly, however, we halted, and looking through thetall grass, saw some of the houses of the Agai Ambu tribe closeat hand. Down we all crouched, hiding ourselves among the grass,while two of our Baruga guides, who speak the language of the AgaiAmbu, went forward to try and parley with them and induce them to befriendly with us. We soon heard them yelling out to the Agai Ambu,who yelled back in reply. This went on for some minutes, when theBaruga men called out to us to come on.

Jumping up, we rushed forward through the grass and witnessed aremarkable scene. In front of us was a lake thickly covered withwater-lilies, most of them long-stemmed and of a very beautiful blue,with a yellow centre, and with large leaves, the edges of which werecovered with a kind of thorn; there were also some white ones withyellow centre.

On the other side of the lake were several curious houses built onlong poles in the water, the houses themselves being a good heightabove the water. The lake presented a scene of great confusion. Theinhabitants were fleeing away from us in their curious canoes, which,unlike most Papuan canoes, had no outrigger whatever. Their paddlesalso were peculiar, the blades being very broad. Close to us wereour two Baruga guides in a canoe with one of the Agai Ambu tribe,who directly he saw us plunged into the lake and disappeared under

the tangled masses of water lilies.

He remained under some time, but on his coming to the surface again,one of the Baruga men plunged in after him, and we witnessed anexciting wrestling match in the water. The Baruga man was by farthe more powerful of the two, but he was no match for the almostamphibious Agai Ambu, who slipped away from his grasp like an eel,and swam away, with the Baruga man in close pursuit. All this timea canoe full of the Agai Ambu was rapidly approaching to the rescue,waving their paddles over their heads, and the Baruga man, seeing this,climbed back into his canoe and paddled back to us.

Meanwhile the police had made a rush for a canoe which was close athand; but it at once upset, having no outrigger and being exceedinglylight and thin; it was, in fact, a species of canoe quite new to ourpolice. In any case they would not have had the slightest chance ofovertaking the fleet Agai Ambu in their own canoes. It looked verymuch as if after all we were not to have the chance of verifyingthe strange reports about the formation of these people. As a lastresource we sent over our two Baruga guides in a canoe to speak withthose of the tribe who had not fled. As the guides approached theyshouted out that we were friends, and that as we were friends of theBaruga tribe, we must be friends of the Agai Ambu tribe as well.

We held up various tempting trade goods, including a calico known asTurkey-red, bottles of beads, etc. This and a long conversation withthe Baruga men seemed to carry some weight with them, for the Barugasoon returned with one of their number, who turned round in the canoewith his arms outstretched to his friends and cried or rather chanted,in a sobbing voice, what sounded like a very weird song, which seemedquite in keeping with the mournful surroundings and lonely life ofthese people.

This weird song, heard under such circumstances, quite thrilled me,and wild and savage though the singer was, the song appealed to memore than any other song has ever done. It looked as if he mightbe a ne'er-do-weel or an idiot whom his friends could afford toexperiment with before taking the risk of coming over themselves,but his song was no doubt a farewell to his friends, whom he possiblynever expected to see again.

He certainly looked horribly frightened as he stepped out of thecanoe. We at once saw that there was some truth in the reports aboutthe physical formation of these people, although there had beenexaggeration in the descriptions of their feet as "webbed." Therewas, between the toes, an epidermal growth more distinct than in thecase of other peoples, though not so conspicuous as to permit of theepithet "half-webbed," much less "webbed," being applied to them. Themost noticeable difference was that their legs below the knee weredistinctly shorter than those of the ordinary Papuan, and that theirfeet seemed much broader and shorter and very flat, so that altogetherthey presented a most extraordinary appearance. The Agai Ambu hardlyever walk on dry land, and their feet bleed if they attempt to doso. They appeared to be slightly bowlegged and walk with a mincinggait, lifting their feet straight up, as if they were pulling themout of the mud.

Sir Francis Winter, the acting Governor of British New Guinea, was sointerested in our discovery, that he himself made another expedition

with Monckton to see these people, while I was still in New Guinea. Onhis return I stayed with him for some time at Government House,Port Moresby, and he gave me a copy of his report on the Agai Ambu,which explains the curious physical formation of these people betterthan I could do.

He says: "On the other side of this mere, and close to a bed of reedsand flags, was a little village of the small Ahgai-ambo tribe, andabout three-quarters of a mile off was a second village. After muchshouting our Baruga followers induced two men and a woman to comeacross to us from the nearest village. Each came in a small canoe,which, standing up, they propelled with a long pole. One man and thewoman ventured on shore to where we were standing.

"The Ahgai-ambo have for a period that extends beyond native traditionslived in this swamp. At one time they were fairly numerous, but afew years ago some epidemic reduced them to about forty. They neverleave their morass, and the Baruga assured us that they are not ableto walk properly on hard ground, and that their feet soon bleedif they try to do so. The man that came on shore was for a nativemiddle-aged. He would have been a fair-sized native, had his bodyfrom the hips downward been proportionate to the upper part of hisframe. He had a good chest and, for a native, a thick neck; and hisarms matched his trunk. His buttocks and thighs were disproportionatelysmall, and his legs still more so. His feet were short and broad,and very thin and flat, with, for a native, weak-looking toes. Thislast feature was still more noticeable in the woman, whose toes werelong and slight and stood out rigidly from the foot as though theypossessed no joints. The feet of both the man and the woman seemed torest on the ground something as wooden feet would do. The skin abovethe knees of the man was in loose folds, and the sinews and musclesaround the knee were not well developed. The muscles of the shin weremuch better developed than those of the calf. In the ordinary nativethe skin on the loins is smooth and tight, and the anatomy of the bodyis clearly discernible; but the Ahgai-ambo man had several folds ofthick skin or muscle across the loins, which concealed the outlineof his frame. On placing one of our natives, of the same height,alongside the marsh man, we noticed that our native was about threeinches higher at the hips.

"I had a good view of our visitor, while he was standing sidewaystowards me, and in figure and carriage he looked to me more ape-likethan any human being that I have seen. The woman, who was of middleage, was much more slightly formed than the man, but her legs wereshort and slender in proportion to her figure, which from the waistto the knees was clothed in a wrapper of native cloth.

"The houses of the near village were built on piles, at a height ofabout twelve feet from the surface of the water, but one house at thefar village must have been three or four feet more elevated. Theircanoes, which are small, long, and narrow, and have no outrigger, axehollowed out to a mere shell to give them buoyancy. Although the openwater was several feet deep, it was so full of aquatic plants thata craft of any width, or drawing more than a few inches, would makebut slow progress through it. Needless to say that these craft, whichretain the round form of the log, are exceedingly unstable, but theirowners stand up in them and, pole them along without any difficulty.

"These people are very expert swimmers, and can glide through beds

of reeds or rushes, or over masses of floating vegetable matter,with ease. They live on wild fowl, fish, sago and marsh plants,and on vegetables procured from the Baruga in exchange for fish andsago. They keep a few pigs on platforms built underneath or alongsidetheir houses. Their dead they place on small platforms among the reeds,and cover the corpse over with a roof of rude matting. Their dialectis almost the same as that of the Baruga. Probably their ancestorsat one time lived close to the swamp, and in order to escape fromtheir enemies were driven to seek a permanent refuge in it."

Thus it will be seen that Sir Francis was much impressed with thesepeople, and he heartily congratulated me upon our discovery.

To resume my personal account. We soon gave the man confidenceby presenting him with an axe, some calico and beads, and a smalllooking-glass, which was held in front of him. He gazed in stupefiedwonderment at his own features so plainly depicted before him. He wastaken back to the other side, and soon returned with two more of histribe, who brought us a live pig, which they hauled out from a raisedflooring beneath one of their houses.

The country all round us seemed to be one large swamp, and we stoodupon a springy foundation of reeds and mud; except for these, weshould undoubtedly have soon sunk out of sight in the mud. As it was,we stood in a foot of water most of the time, and in places we hadto wade through mud over our knees.

The lake swarmed with many kinds of curious water-birds, the mostcommon being a red-headed kind of plover; there was also a greatvariety of duck and teal. The swamps were full of large spiders, whichcrawled all over us; we had to keep continually brushing them off.

Farther down the lake we saw another small village, and we weretold that these two villages comprised the whole of this curioustribe. Whether they axe the remnants of a once powerful tribe itis impossible to say, but their position is well-nigh impregnablein case they are ever attacked, as their houses are surrounded byswamps and water on all sides, and no outsider could very well getthrough the swamps to their villages. The only possible way to getthere would be to cross the water in their shell-like canoes, a featwhich no man of any other tribe would ever be able to manage.

Monckton thought that these swamps and lake were formed by an overflowof the Musa River. This had been a phenomenally dry season for NewGuinea, so these swamps in an ordinary wet season must be under waterto the depth of many feet.

We camped close by on the borders of the forest amid a jungle ofrank luxuriant vegetation, over which hovered large and brilliantbutterflies, among them a very large metallic green and black species(ORNITHOPTERA PRIAMUS) and a large one of a bright blue (PAPILIOULYSES). The same afternoon we three went out shooting on the lake. Twoof the Agai Ambu canoes were lashed together and a raft of splitbamboo put across them, and two Agai Ambu men punted and paddled usabout. Before starting we had first educated them up to the reportof our guns, and after a few shots they soon got over their fright.

The lake positively swarmed with water-fowl, including severalvarieties of duck, also shag, divers, pigmy geese, small teal, grebe,

red-headed plover, spur-wing plover, curlew, sandpipers, snipe,swamp hen, water-rail, and many other birds. The red-headed ploverwere especially numerous, and ran about on the surface of the lake,which was covered with the water-lily leaves and a thick sort of mossyweed. All the birds seemed remarkably tame, and we got a good assortedbag, chiefly duck -- enough to supply most of our large force with.

I stopped most of the time on the raised platform of one of thehouses and shot the duck, which Acland and Monckton put up, asthey flew over my head. I had a companion in old Giwi, the chiefof the Kaili-kailis, many of whom were among our carriers. Heseemed to be on very friendly terms with one of the Agai Ambu onwhose hut I was. Presently a woman came over in a canoe from oneof the houses in the far village, and climbed up on to the platformwhere we were. Directly she saw old Giwi, she caught hold of him andhugged and kissed him all over and rubbed her face against his body,covering him with the black pigment with which she had smeared herface. She was sobbing all the time and chanting a very mournful butnot unmusical kind of song. This exhibition lasted over half an hour,and poor old Giwi looked quite bewildered, and gazed up at me in amost piteous way, as much as to say: "Awful nuisance, this woman --but what am I to do?" He understood the meaning of this performanceas little as I did. Possibly the woman was frightened of us, andseeing a stranger of her own colour in old Giwi, appealed to himfor protection. The Baruga, however, had previously told us that theAgai Ambu had recently captured one of their women, and I have sincethought that this might possibly have been the woman, and am sorry Idid not make inquiries at the time. At all events, old Giwi was toocourteous to shake her off, though to me it was a most amusing sight,and it was all I could do to refrain from laughing aloud.

We saw the dead body of a man half-wrapped in mats tied to polesin the middle of the lake. They always dispose of their dead thus,and I suppose leave them there till they rot or dry up.

The chief food of these people seemed to be the bulbs of thewater-lilies, fish and shellfish. They catch plenty of water-fowl bydiving under them and pulling them under the water by the legs beforethey have time to make any noise. By this method they do not frightenthe rest away, and this accounts for the birds' extreme tameness.

It seemed odd that we should be paddled about the lake, to shoot wildfowl, by these people, who until to-day had never seen a white manbefore and had fled from us in the morning. However, most of themhad fled and would not return until we had left their country.

There is little doubt that this part of the country is mostunhealthy. Many of our police and carriers were two days later downwith fever, and a few weeks later I had a bad attack of fever, withwhich I was laid up in Samarai for some time, and which I feel sure Igot into my system in this swamp. The mosquitoes were certainly veryplentiful and vicious.

We spent the following day here, duck-shooting on the lake, and I dida little natural-history collecting in the adjacent forest. We hadintended to try and induce two of the Agai Ambu to accompany us back toCape Nelson, but most unfortunately they understood that we were goingto take them forcibly away. They became alarmed and all disappeared,and we were not able to get into communication with them again.

When Sir Francis Winter visited them about a month later they wereevidently quite friendly again, but on the second day of his visithis native followers demanded a pig of the Agai Ambu in his, SirFrancis's, name. At this they became alarmed and retreated to thefurther village, and he was unable to see any more of them. Sincethen I believe nothing more has been seen of these flat-footed people.

We returned to our old camping ground in the Baruga village on thebanks of the Barigi River, and the friendly Baruga people broughtus a big supply of pigs, sago and other native food. The next daywe continued our journey to the coast, and camped at the mouth ofthe Barigi River. We had intended making an expedition into theHydrographer range of mountains, which we could see from here, andwhich were unexplored, but Monckton and Acland were far from well, andmost of our carriers and police were down with fever, and so, greatlyto my disappointment, this had to be abandoned. We resumed our homewardjourney in the whaleboat early the following morning. We started witha fair breeze, but this changed after a time to a head wind, againstwhich it was quite impossible to make any headway, so we landed at aplace where there was a small inlet leading into a lagoon. We stayedhere till six p.m., when the wind dropped sufficiently to enableus to start off again, and, passing the mouth of the Musa River,we landed about one a.m. in Porlock Bay, where we camped for the night.

We spent the following day shooting, which entailed a lot of wadingamongst the shallow streams, lagoons and small lakes. I had a bit of afright here, as I suddenly stepped into some quicksands and felt myselfsinking fast, but, thanks to Arigita and the branch of a tree, I wasable to pull myself out after a great deal of trouble and anxiety,though if I had not had Arigita with me I should most certainlyhave gone under. We got a splendid bag between us of various birds,chiefly duck and pigeon. One of the police shot a large cassowary,and also a large wild pig and a wallaby, so there was plenty of foodfor all. We sailed again that night at eleven p.m., and got six ofthe Okeina canoes to tow us along. This they did not seem to relish,and before they got into line there was a great deal of angry talkingand shouting, and Monckton had to call them to order by firing a riflein the air. It was amusing to see the way the long line of canoespulled us round and round in the form of the letter "S," and theywould often bump against each other, and plenty of angry words wereexchanged. It was an amusing FINALE to the expedition. They left usfor their homes when we got near the Okeina country. We landed in theearly morning on the beach, where we had breakfast, and then rowed on,followed by the Kaili-kaili and Arifamu canoes, and eventually landedagain at the station at Tufi, Cape Nelson, about two p.m.

In conclusion I should mention that Mr. Oelrechs, Monckton's assistant,had heard rumours that we had all been massacred, and he told me thathe had been seriously thinking of gathering together a large army offriendly natives to go down and avenge us, though I think he wouldhave found it no easy matter, but, as can be seen, we saved him thetrouble, and so our expedition ended.

Wanderings and Wonders in Borneo.

CHAPTER 12

On the War-Path in Borneo.

The "Orang-utan" and the "Man of the Jungle" -- Voyage to Sarawak-- The Borneo Company, Limited -- Kuching, a Picturesque Capital --Independence of Sarawak -- I meet the Rajah and the Chief Officials-- Etiquette of the Sarawak Court -- The "Club" -- The "Rangers" ofSarawak and their Trophies -- Execution by means of the Long Kris --Degeneracy of the Land Dayaks -- Ascent of the Rejang River -- MudBanks and Crocodiles -- Dr. Hose at his Sarawak Home -- The Fort atSibu -- Enormous length of Dayak Canoes -- A Brush with Head-Hunters-- Dayak Vengeance on Chinamen -- First Impressions of the Sea Dayak,"picturesque and interesting" -- A Head-Hunting raid, Dayaks attackthe Punans -- I accompany the Punitive Expedition -- Voyage Upstream-- A Clever "Bird Scare" -- Houses on the top of Tree-stumps -- TheKelamantans -- Kanawit Village -- The Fort at Kapit -- Capture of anotorious Head-Hunting Chief -- I inspect the "Heads" of the Victims-- Cause of Head-Hunting -- Savage Revenge of a Dayak Lover and itsSequel -- Hose's stem Ultimatum -- Accepted by the Head-Hunters --I return to Sibu -- A Fatal Misconception.

I had spent about seven months in the forests of British NorthBorneo, going many days' journey into the heart of the country, hadmade fine natural-history collections and had come across a greatdeal of game, including elephant, rhinoceros, bear, and "tembadu" orwild cattle, huge wild pig and deer of three species being especiallyplentiful. But above all I had come across a great many "orang-utan"(Malay for "jungle-man") and had been able to study their habits. Oneof these great apes has the strength of eight men and possesses anextraordinary amount of vitality. One that I shot lived for nearlythree hours with five soft-nosed Mauser bullets in its body.

But I had not yet seen the REAL jungle-man in his native haunts --the head-hunting Dayak, as the Dayaks are rarely to be found in NorthBorneo, whereas the people on the Kinabatangan River (where I spentmost of my time) were a sort of Malay termed "Orang Sungei" (RiverPeople). So, as I was anxious to see the real head-hunting Dayak,I determined to go to Sarawak, which is in quite a different part ofBorneo. To do this, I had to return to Singapore, and thence, after atwo days' voyage, I arrived at Kuching, the capital of Sarawak. Exceptfor a Chinese towkay, I was the only saloon passenger, as strangersrarely visit this country.

Kuching is about twenty-five miles up the Sarawak River, and containsabout thirty thousand inhabitants, chiefly Malays and Chinese,with about fifty Europeans, who are for the most part governmentofficials or belong to the Borneo Company, Limited. This company isvery wealthy and owns the only steamship line, plying between Singaporeand Kuching. It has several gold mines and a great quantity of landplanted to pepper, gambier, gutta percha and rubber. The Rajah willnot allow any other company or private individual to buy lands oropen up an estate, neither will he allow any traders in the country.

It would be difficult to imagine a more picturesque town thanKuching. It chiefly consists of substantial Chinese dwellings of brick

and plaster, with beautiful tile-work of quaint figures, while templesglittering with gold peep out of thick, luxuriant, tropical growth. Twomiles out of the city you can lose yourself in a dense tropical forestof the greatest beauty, and in the background is a chain of mountains,some of them of extraordinary shape. The reigning monarch or Rajahis an Englishman, Sir Charles Brooke, a nephew of Sir James Brooke,the first Rajah, who was an officer in the British Navy and who,after conquering Malay pirates, was made Rajah of the country by thegrateful Dayaks.

Though Sarawak is supposed to be under British protection, and thoughall his officials are Britishers, Rajah Brooke considers his countryindependent and will not allow the Union Jack to be flown in hisdominions. He possesses his own flag, a mixture of red, black andyellow, and his own national anthem; moreover his officials referto him as the King, and to his son, the heir to the throne, as the"young King" (or "Rajah Muda").

Two days after my arrival, the Rajah left on his steam yacht forEngland, but the day before he left, he held a great reception at his"palace" (or "astana," as it is called in Malay). It was attendedby all his officials, by high Malay chiefs and the chief Chinesemerchants. The reins of government were formally handed over to hisson, the Rajah Muda, after which champagne was passed round. The chiefresident, Sir Percy Cunninghame, then introduced me to the Rajah. He isa fine-looking old man with a white moustache and white hair, and isgreatly beloved by every one. He conversed with me for some time, andasked me many questions about the Chartered Company in British NorthBorneo. It was rather embarrassing for me, with every one silently andrespectfully standing around listening to every word. He wished mesuccess in my travels in the interior, and told his officials to doall in their power to help me. When you talk about the Rajah you say"His Highness," but when you address him, you simply say "Rajah" afterevery few words -- "Yes, Rajah," or "No, Rajah." The native chiefs,I noticed, kissed the hands of both the Rajah and the Rajah Muda.

There is no hotel in Kuching, so I put up at the rather dilapidatedgovernment Rest-House, part of which I had to myself, the other halfbeing occupied by two government officers. The club in Kuching seemsa most popular institution with all the officials, and "gin pahits"(or "bitters") the popular drink of this part of the world; billiardsand pool help to pass many a pleasant evening, the Rajah Muda oftenjoining us at a game of black pool, like any ordinary mortal.

The Rajah's troops, the Rangers, are a fine body of men; they arechiefly recruited from the Malays and Dayaks, and have an Englishsergeant to drill them. I was told that when they go fighting the wildhead-hunters, they are allowed to bring in as trophies the heads ofthose they kill, in the same way that the Dayaks themselves do. Themethod of execution here is the same as in other Malay countries,the criminal being taken down to the banks of the river, where a long"kris" is thrust down through the shoulder into the heart, and isthen twisted about till the man is dead.

After a visit to Bau, further up the Sarawak River, where the BorneoCompany, whose guest I was, have a gold mine (the clay being treatedby the "cyanide" process), I collected specimens for some time in thebeautiful forests at the foot of the limestone mountains of Poak. HereI saw something of the Land Dayaks, but they are a poor degenerate

breed, and not to be compared to the Sea Dayaks, who are born fighters,and whose predatory head-hunting instincts give a great deal of troubleto the government. These latter were the Dayaks I was anxious to meet,and I soon made arrangements to visit their country, which is a goodway from Kuching, the real Sea Dayak rarely visiting the capital.

So one morning early I found myself with my two servants, a Chinesecook and a civilized Dayak named Dubi (Mr. R. Shelford also going),on board a government paddle-wheel steamer which was bound for Sibu,on the Rejang River. Twenty-five miles' descent of the Sarawak Riverbrought us to the sea. We did not skirt the coast, but cut across alarge open expanse of sea for about ninety miles. We then came to thedelta of the Rejang River, and went up one of its many mouths, whichwas of great width, though the scenery all the way was monotonous,and consisted of nothing but mangroves, PANDANUS, the feathery NIPApalm and the tall, slender "nibong" palm, with here and there acrocodile lying, out on the mud banks -- a dismal scene.

At nightfall we anchored a short way up the river, as the governmentwill not allow their boats to travel up the river by night, it beingunsafe. We were off again at daylight the next morning, the sceneryimproving as the interminable mangroves gave place to the forest. Sixtymiles up the river found us at Sibu, where I put up with Dr. Hose,the Resident, the celebrated Bornean explorer and naturalist. Theonly other Europeans here were two junior officials, Messrs. Johnsonand Bolt. And yet there is a club at Sibu, a club for three, and herethese three officials meet every evening and play pool.

There is a fort in Sibu, as indeed there is at most of the riverplaces in Sarawak. It is generally a square-shaped wooden building,perforated all round with small holes for rifles, while just belowthe roof is a slanting grill-work through which it is easy to shoot,though, as it is on the slant, it is hard for spears to enter from theoutside. There are one or two cannons in most of these forts. The fortat Sibu was close to Dr. Hose's house and was attacked by Dayaks onlya few years ago. Johnson, one of Dr. Hose's assistants, showed me avery long Dayak canoe capable of seating over one hundred men. It wasmade out of one tree, but large as it was, it did not equal some of theKayan canoes on this river, one of which was one hundred and forty-fivefeet in length. This Dayak canoe was literally riddled with bullets,and Johnson told me that a few weeks' ago he was fighting some Dayakson the Kanawit, a branch river near here, when he was attacked by someDayaks in this very canoe. As they came up throwing spears he told hismen to fire, with the result that eighteen Dayaks were killed. Theriver at Sibu was of great width, over a mile across, in fact, andclose to the bank is a Malay village, and a bazaar where the wilyChinaman does a thriving trade in the wild produce of the country,and makes huge profits out of the Dayaks and other natives on thisriver. But the Dayaks often have their revenge and attack the Chinamenwith great slaughter, the result being that they take home with themplenty of yellow-skinned heads with nice long pig-tails to hang themup by. During my stay on this river there were two or three cases ofChinamen being slaughtered by the Dayaks, and if it were not for theforts on these rivers, every Chinaman would be wiped out of existence.

My first real acquaintance with the Sea Dayak was in the long bazaarat Sibu, and I was by no means disappointed in my first impressions,as I found him a most picturesque and interesting individual. The menusually have long black hair hanging down their backs, often with a

long fringe on their foreheads. Their skin is brown, they have snubnoses but resolute eyes, and they are of fine proportions, though theyrarely exceed five feet five inches in height. Beyond the "jawat,"a long piece of cloth which hangs down between their legs, they wearnothing, if I except their many and varied ornaments. They wear a greatvariety of earrings. These are often composed of heavy bits of brass,which draw the lobes of the ears down below the shoulder. When theygo on the war-path they generally wear war-coats made from the skinsof various wild animals, and these are often padded as a protectionagainst the small poisonous darts of the "sumpitan" or blow-pipe which,together with the "parang" (a kind of sword) and long spears withbroad steel points constitute their chief weapons. They also havelarge shields of light wood; often fantastically painted in curiouspatterns, or ornamented with human hair.

I had been at Sibu only three or four days, when word was brought downto Dr. Hose that the Ulu Ai Dayaks, near Fort Kapit, about one hundredmiles up the river, had attacked and killed a party of Punans forthe sake of their heads. These Punans are a nomadic tribe who wanderabout through the great forests with no settled dwelling-places, butbuild themselves rough huts and hunt the wild game of the forest andfeed on the many wild fruits that are found in these forests. Hoseat once decided to go up to Fort Kapit and punish these Dayaks, andgave me leave to accompany him and Shelford. So one morning at sixo'clock we boarded a large steam launch with a party of the Rangers,mentioned above, as the Rajah's troops. We took, from near Sibu,several friendly Dayaks, who were armed to the teeth with spears,"parangs," "sumpitans," shields and war ornaments, all highly elatedat the prospect of the fighting in store for them.

In a short account like this, it is of course impossible to describethe many interesting things that I saw on the journey up the river. Wepassed many of the long, curious Dayak houses and plenty of canoes fullof these picturesque people, and at some of the villages little Dayakchildren hurriedly pushed out small canoes from the shore so as toget rocked by the waves made by our launch. This they seemed to enjoy,to judge from the delighted yells they gave forth. I several times sawa most ingenious invention for frightening away the birds and monkeysfrom the large fruit trees which surrounded every Dayak village. Atone end of a large rattan cord was a sort of wooden rattle, fixed onthe top of one of the largest fruit trees. The other end of the rattanwas fastened to a slender bamboo stick which was stuck into the river,and the action of the stream caused the bamboo to sway to and fro,thus jerking the rattan which in turn set the rattle going. We passedseveral small houses built on the tops of large tree-stumps. These,Dr. Hose informed me, were built by Kanawits, of a race of peopleknown as Kelamantans. These Kelamantans are supposed to be the oldestresidents of Borneo, being here long before the Dayaks and Kayans,but they axe fast dying out, as are the Punans, I believe chieflyowing to the raids of the warlike Dayaks. They were once ferocioushead-hunters, but now they are a very inoffensive people.

About mid-day we stopped at the village of Kanawit, at the mouth of theriver of that name. This village, like Sibu, is composed entirely ofChinese and Malays. They are all traders and do a thriving businesswith the Dayaks and other natives. Here also was a fort with itscannon, with a Dayak or Malay sergeant and a dozen men in charge. Aswe proceeded up river, the scenery became rather monotonous. Therewas little tall forest, the country being either cleared for planting

"padi" (rice) or in secondary forest growth or jungle, a sure signof a thick population. We saw many Dayaks burning the felled junglefor planting their "padi," and the air was full of ashes and smoke,which obscured the rays of the sun and cast a reddish glare on thesurrounding country.

Toward evening we reached the village of Song and stayed here allnight, fastening our launch to the bank. In spite of the fort here,we learned that the Chinamen were in great fear of an attack by theDayaks, which they daily expected. Leaving Song at half-past five thenext morning, we arrived at Kapit about ten a.m. and put up at thefort, which was a large one. A long, narrow platform from the top ofthe fort led to a larger platform on which, overlooking the river,there was a large cannon which could be turned round so as to coverall the approaches from the river in case there was an attack on thefort. We learned that the day before we arrived at Kapit, Mingo, thePortuguese in charge of the fort, had captured the worst ringleader ofthe head-hunters in the bazaar at Kapit, and small parties of loyalDayaks were at once sent off to the homes of the other head-hunterswith strict injunctions to bring back the guilty ones, and, failingpersuasion and threats, to attack them.[11] In most cases they weresuccessful, and I saw many of the prisoners brought in, together withsome of the heads of their victims.

The next morning Hose suddenly called out to me that if I wishedto inspect the heads I would find them hanging up under the cannonplatform by the river, and he sent a Dayak to undo the wrappingsof native cloth and mats in which they were done up. They were asickening sight, and all the horrors of head-hunting were broughtbefore me with vivid and startling reality far more than could havebeen done by any writer, and I pictured those same heads full of lifeonly a few days before, and then suddenly a rush from the outsideamid the unprepared Punans in their rude huts in the depths of theforest, a woman's scream of terror, followed by the sickening sound ofhacking blows from the sharp Dayak "parangs," and the Dayak war-cry,"Hoo-hah! hoo-hah!" ringing through the night air, as every singlePunan man, woman and child, who has not had time to escape, is cutdown in cold blood. When all are dead, the proud Dayaks, proceed tohack off the heads of their victims and bind them round with rattanstrings with which to carry them, and then, returning in triumph,are hailed with shouts of delight by their envious fellow-villagers,for this means wives, a Dayak maiden thinking as much of heads as awhite girl would of jewellery. The old Dayak who undid the wrappingspretended to be horrified, but I felt sure that the old hypocritewished that he owned them himself.

Only seven of the heads had been brought in, and two of them wereheads of women, and although they had been smoked, I could easilysee that one of them was that of a quite young, good-looking girl,with masses of long, dark hair. She had evidently been killed by ablow from a "parang," as the flesh on the head had been separated bya large cut which had split the skull open. In one of the men's headsthere were two small pieces of wood inserted in the nose. They wereall ghastly sights to look at, and smelt a bit, and I was not sorryto be able to turn my back on them.

As in the present case, the brass-encircled young Dayak women aregenerally the cause of these head-hunts, as they often refuse tomarry a man unless he has one or more heads, and in many cases a

man is absolutely driven to get a head if he wishes to marry. Theheads are handed down from father to son, and the rank of a Dayak isgenerally determined by the number of heads he or his ancestors havecollected. A Dayak goes on the war-path more for the sake of the headshe may get, than for the honour and glory of the fighting. Generally,though, there is precious little fighting, as the Dayak attacks onlywhen his victims are unprepared.

While I was in Borneo I heard the following story of Dayak barbarity,which is a good example of the way the women incite their men to goon these head-hunting expeditions. In a certain district where somemissionaries were doing good work among the Dayaks, a Dayak youngman named Hathnaveng had been persuaded by the missionaries to giveup the barbaric custom of headhunting. One day, however, he fell inlove with a Dayak maiden. The girl, although returning his passion,disdained his offer of marriage, because he no longer indulged in theancient practice of cutting off and bringing home the heads of theenemies of the tribe. Hathnaveng, goaded by the taunts of the girl,who told him to dress in women's clothes in the future, as he nolonger had the courage of a man, left the village and remained awayfor some time. When he returned, he entered his sweetheart's hut,carrying a sack on his shoulders. He opened it, and four human headsrolled upon the bamboo floor. At the sight of the trophies, the girlat once took him back into her favour, and flinging her arms roundhis neck, embraced him passionately.

"You wanted heads," declared her lover. "I have brought them. Do younot recognize them?"

Then to her horror she saw they were the heads of her father, hermother, her brother and of a young man who was Hathnaveng's rivalfor her affections. Hathnaveng was immediately seized by some ofthe tribesmen, and by way of punishment was placed in a small bamboostructure such as is commonly used by the Dayaks for pigs, and allowedto starve to death.[12] This is a true story, and occurred while Iwas still in Borneo.

The day after we arrived at Kapit a great crowd of Dayaks, belonging tothe tribe of those implicated in the attack on the Punans, assembledat the fort to talk with Dr. Hose on the matter, and the upshot ofit all was startling in its severity. This was Hose's ultimatum:They must give up the rest of those that took part in the raid, andthey would all get various terms of imprisonment. They must returnthe rest of the heads. They must pay enormous fines, and, lastly,those villages which had men who took part in the raid, must movedown the river opposite Sibu, and thus be under Hose's eye as wellas under the guns of the fort. I watched the faces of the crowd, andit was interesting to witness their various emotions. Some lookedstupefied, others looked very angry, and that they could not agreeamong themselves was plainly evident from their angry squabbling. Theywere a curious crowd with their long black hair and fringes and roundtattoo marks on their bodies. They finally agreed to these terms, asHose told them that if they did not do so, he would come and make them,even if he had to kill them all. The following days I witnessed largebands of Dayaks bringing to the fort their fines, which consisted oflarge jars and brass gongs, which are the Dayak forms of currency. Thetotal fine amounted to $5,200, and the jars were carefully examined,the gongs weighed and their values assessed. Some of the jars werevery old, but the older they are the more they are worth. Three of

the poorest looking ones were valued at $1,400 (the dollar in Borneois about two of our shillings). Of the total, $1,200 was later paid tothe Punans as compensation ("pati nyawa"). I watched some Dayaks -- whohad just brought in their fines -- as they went away in one of theirlarge canoes, and they crossed the river with a quick, short strokeof their paddles in splendid time, so that one heard the sound oftheir paddles, as they beat against the side of the canoe, come in oneshort tr-r-up. They seemed to be very angry, all talking at once, andI still heard the sound of their angry voices above the paddles' beat,long after they had disappeared up a narrow creek on the other side.

I had intended going with my two servants further up the river andliving for some time among the Dayaks, but Dr. Hose made objectionsto my doing so. He said it would be very unsafe for me to live amongthese Kapit Dayaks at the present time, as they were naturally in avery excitable state, and would have thought little of killing one ofthe "orang puteh" (white men), whom they no doubt considered the causeof all their trouble. They would be sure to take me for a governmentofficial. Hose instead advised me to go up a small unexplored branchriver below Sibu, so as the launch was returning to Sibu I determinedto return in her, leaving Hose and Shelford at Kapit.

During my short stay at Kapit I added very few new specimens tomy collections of birds and butterflies; in fact, it was the worstcollecting-ground that I struck during more than a year's wanderingsin Borneo. I, however, made a fine collection of Dayak weapons,shields and war ornaments from our friendly Dayaks, who seemed verylow-spirited now that there was to be no fighting, and on thisaccount traded some of their property to me which at other timesnothing would have induced them to part with, at a very low figure.

I returned to Sibu with Mingo, and we took with us the ringleader ofthe head-hunters. He was kept handcuffed in the hold, and he workedhimself up into a pitiable state of fright. He thought he was going tobe killed, and the whole of the voyage he was chanting a most mournfulkind of song, a regular torrent of words going to one note. My Dayakservant Dubi informed me that he was singing about the heads he hadtaken, and for which he thought he was now going to die.

After a day's stay in Sibu I went up the Sarekei River with mytwo servants, and made a long stay in a Dayak house. I will try todescribe my life among the Dayaks in the next chapter. In conclusion,I must tell the tragic story of a fatal mistake, which was told me byJohnson, one of the officials at Sibu, which serves to illustrate thesuperstitious beliefs of the Malays. A Chinese prisoner at Sibu haddied, at least Johnson and Bolt both thought so, and they sent some ofthe Malay soldiers to bury the body on the other side of the river. Afew days later one of them casually remarked to Johnson that they hadoften heard it said that the spirit of a man sometimes returned tohis body again for a short time after death (a Malay belief), but he(this Malay) had not believed it before, but he now knew that it wastrue. Johnson, much amused, asked him how that was. "Oh," said theMalay, "when the Tuan (Johnson) sent us across the river to bury thedead man the other day, his spirit came back to him and his body satup and talked, and we were much afraid, and seized hold of the body;which gave us much trouble to put it into the hole we had digged,and when we had quickly filled in the hole so that the body could notcome out again, we fled away quickly, so now we know that the sayingis true." It thus transpired that they had buried a live Chinaman

without being aware of the fact.

CHAPTER 13

Home-Life Among Head-Hunting Dayaks.

I leave the Main Stream and journey up the Sarekei -- A Streamoverarched by Vegetation -- House 200 feet long -- I make Friends withthe Chief -- My New Quarters -- Rarity of White Men -- Friendlinessof my New Hosts -- Embarrassing Request from a Lady, "like we yourskin" -- Similar Experience of Wallace -- Crowds to see me Undress --Dayak's interest in Illustrated Papers -- Waist-rings of Dayak Women-- Teeth filled with brass -- Noisiness of a Dayak House -- DayakDogs -- A well-meant Blow and its Sequel -- Uproarious Amusement ofthe Dayaks -- Dayak Fruit-Trees -- The Durian as King of all Fruits-- Dayak "Bridges" across the Swamp-Dances of the Head-Hunters --A Secret "Fishing" Expedition -- A Spear sent by way of defiance tothe Government -- I "score" off the Pig-Hunters -- Dayak Diseases --Dayak Women and Girls -- Two "Broken Hearts" -- I Raffle my Tins --"Cookie" and the Head-Hunters, their Jokes and Quarrels -- My Adventurewith a Crocodile.

The Rejang is one of the many large rivers which abound in Borneo,and its tributaries are numerous and for the most part unexplored. TheRejang is tidal for fully one hundred and fifty miles, and at Sibuis over a mile in width. The banks of this river are inhabited bya large population of Malays, Chinese, Dayaks, Kayans, Kanawits,Punans and numerous other tribes. Thus it is a highly interestingregion for an ethnologist.

It was with feelings of pleasant anticipation that I started downthe river in the government steam-launch from Sibu just as dawn wasbreaking, on my way to spend several weeks among the wild Dayakson the unexplored Sarekei River. I took with me my two servants,Dubi, a civilized Dayak, and my Chinese cook. After a journey offour hours we arrived at a large Malay village near the mouth ofthe Sarekei River. Here I disembarked and sought out the chief ofthe village and demanded the loan of two canoes, with some men topaddle them, and in return I offered liberal payment. Accordingly,an hour after my arrival I found myself with all my belongings andservants on board the two canoes, with a crew of nine Malays. Soonafter leaving the Malay village we branched off to the left up theSarekei River. It was very monotonous at first, as the giant plumesof the NIPA palm hid everything from my view. My Malays worked hardat their paddles, and late in the afternoon we left the main SarekeiRiver and paddled up a small and extremely narrow stream. There wefound ourselves in the depth of a most luxuriant vegetation. We werein a regular tunnel formed by arching ferns and orchid-laden trees,giant PANDANUS, various palms and arborescent ferns and CALADIUMS. Heregrew the largest CRINUM lilies I had ever seen. They literally toweredover me, and the sweet-scented white and pink flowers grew in hugebunches on stems nearly as thick as my arm.

After the bright sun on the main river, the dark, gloomy depths of thisside-stream were very striking. It was so narrow that sometimes thevegetation on both sides was forced into the canoes, and the "atap"(palm-thatched) roof of my canoe came in for severe treatment as it

brushed against prickly PANDANUS and thorny rattans.

The entrance to this stream was completely hidden from view, and noone but these Malays, who had been up here before, trading with theDayaks, could have discovered it. I had told the Malay chief that Iwished to visit a Dayak village where no white man had ever been andwhere they were head-hunters. He had smiled slyly and nodded as if heunderstood. Thereupon he said, "Baik (good), Tuan," and said he wouldhelp me. Just as darkness was setting in we arrived at a Dayak village,consisting of one very long house, which I afterwards found to exceedtwo hundred feet in length. It was situated about one hundred yardsfrom the stream. No sooner had we sighted it than the air resoundedwith the loud beating of large gongs and plenty of shouting. Therewas a great commotion among the Dayaks.

I at first felt doubtful as to the kind of reception I should get,and immediately made my way to the house with Dubi, who explainedto the Dayak chief that I was no government official, but had cometo see them and also to get some "burong" (birds) and "kopo-kopo"(butterflies). I forthwith presented the old chief with a bottle ofgin, such as they often get from the Malay traders, and some Javanesetobacco, and his face was soon wreathed in smiles.

The Dayaks soon brought all my baggage into the house and I paidoff my Malays and proceeded to make myself as comfortable as I couldfor my stay of several weeks, the chief giving me a portion of hisown quarters and spreading mats for me over the bamboo floor. On thelatter I put my camp-bed and boxes. I occupied a portion of the opencorridor or main hall, which ran the length of the house and wherethe unmarried men sleep. This long corridor was just thirty feetin width, and formed by far the greater portion of the house; smallopenings from this corridor led on to a kind of unsheltered platformtwenty-five feet in width, which ran the length of the house and onwhich the Dayaks generally dry their "padi" (rice).

The other side of the house was divided into several rooms, each ofwhich belonged to a separate family. Here they store their wealth,chiefly huge jars and brass gongs. The house was raised on piles fullyten to twelve feet from the ground, the space underneath being fencedin for the accommodation of their pigs and chickens. The smells thatcame up through the half-open bamboo and "bilian"-wood flooring werethe reverse of pleasant. The entrance at each end was by means ofa very steep and slippery sort of ladder made out of one piece ofwood with notches cut in it, the steps being only a few inches inwidth. One of these ladders had a rough bamboo hand-rail on each side,and the top part of the steps was roughly carved into the semblanceof a human face.

In the rafters over my head I noticed a great quantity of spears,shields, "sumpitans" or blowpipes, paddles, fish-traps, baskets androlls of mats piled up indiscriminately, while just over my head whereI slept was a rattan basket containing two human heads, though Dubitold me he thought the Dayaks had hidden most of their heads on myarrival. This description of the house I resided in for some time,applies more or less to all the Dayak houses I saw in Borneo.

This house or village was called Menus, and the old chief's namewas Usit. In spelling these names one has to be entirely guided bythe sounds and write them after the fashion of the English method

of spelling Malay. The village or house of Menus seemed to containabout one hundred inhabitants, not counting small children. Upon myarrival I was soon surrounded by a most curious throng, many of whomgazed at me with open mouths, in astonishment at the sight of an"orang puteh" (white man), as of course no white man had ever beenhere before and but very few of the people had ever seen one. One oldwoman remembered having seen a white man, and some of the older menhad from time to time seen government officials on the Rejang River,but except to these few I was a complete novelty. Considering this,I was greatly astonished at their friendliness, as not only the men,but the women and children squatted around me in the most amicablefashion, and sometimes even became a decided nuisance. My first eveningamong them, however, I found extremely amusing, and as my Chinese cookplaced the food he had cooked before me, and as I ate it with knife,fork and spoon, they watched every mouthful I took amid a loud buzzof comments and exclamations of delight.

Though by no means the first time I have had to endure this sort ofpopularity, or rather notoriety, in various countries of the world,I do not think I have ever come across a people so full of friendlycuriosity as were these Dayaks. About midnight I began to feel a bitsleepy, but the admiring multitude did not seem inclined to move,so I told Dubi to tell them that I wanted to change my clothes andgo to sleep. No one moved. "Tell the ladies to go, Dubi," I said,but on his translating my message a woman in the background calledout something that met with loud cries of approval.

"What does she say, Dubi?" I asked.

"She says, Tuan," replied Dubi, "they like see your skin, if whitethe same all over."

This was rather embarrassing, and I told Dubi to insist upon theirgoing; but Dubi, whose advice I generally took, replied, "I think,Tuan (master), more better you show to them your skin." I thereforesubmitted with as good a grace as possible, and took my shirt off,while some of them, especially the women, pinched and patted the skinon my back amid cries of approval and delight.

They asked if the skin of the Tuan Muda (the Rajah) was as white, and,on being told that it was, a long and serious conversation took placeamong them, during which the name of the Tuan Muda kept constantlycropping up.

The great naturalist, Wallace, met with much the same experienceamong the Dayaks, and as the natives of many other countries amongwhom I have lived never seemed to display the same curiosity aboutmy white skin, I put it down to the Dayaks wishing to see what kindof a skin the great white Rajah, who rules over them, possesses.

The next two or three nights the crowd that waited to see me changeinto my pyjamas was, if anything, still larger, a good many Dayaksfrom neighbouring villages coming over to see the sight. But graduallythe novelty wore off, to my great joy, as I was getting a bit tiredof the whole performance. I had come here to see the Dayaks, but itappeared that they were even more anxious to see me.

For the next two or three weeks an odd Dayak would from time to timeask to see my skin, so that at length I had absolutely to refuse to

exhibit myself any longer.

I had luckily brought several illustrated magazines with me to useas papers for my butterflies, and these were a source of endlessdelight to the crowds around me in the evenings. They behaved like alot of small children, and roared with laughter over the pictures. Theygenerally looked at the pictures upside down, and even then they seemedto find something amusing about them. With Dubi as my interpreterI used to make up stories about the pictures, and, pointing tothe portrait of some well-known actress, described the number ofhusbands she had killed, and I'm afraid I grossly libelled many awell-known politician, general, or divine in telling the Dayaks howmany heads they possessed or how many wives they owned, till it wasquite a natural thing for me to join in their uproarious merriment,as I pictured in my mind some venerable bishop on the war-path.

As is well known, the Dayak women all wear rings of brass aroundtheir waists. They are called "gronong," and they are made of pliablerattan inside, with small brass rings fastened around the rattan. Inthe centre of each ring there are generally two or three small redand black rings of coloured rattan between the brass ones. Some woreonly four or five, while others possessed twenty or more, and thenthey rather resembled a corset. Even the little girls of four or fivewore two or three of them.

I noticed on my first arrival that the women and some of the men seemedto have their teeth plentifully filled with gold, but I soon found outthat it was brass that they had ornamented their teeth with, a smallpiece being inserted in some way in the centre of each tooth. Theirteeth are generally black from the continual chewing of the betel-nut,and I noticed small children of four or five years of age going in forthis dirty habit, and still younger children smoking cigarettes, thecovering of which is made out of the dried leaf of the sago-palm. TheDayaks are almost as dirty as the Negritos in the Philippines, and yetthey are both certainly the merriest people I have ever met with. Theheartiest and most unaffected laughter I have ever heard proceededfrom the throats of Dayaks and Negritos. It almost seems as if dirtin some cases constitutes true happiness.

The Dayak women seemed to bathe more often than the men, but theynever seemed to take off their brass waist-rings when bathing in theriver. The women also have their wrists covered with brass bangles,which are all fastened together in one piece. The noise in the housewas deafening at times, especially in the evening, when all come homefrom working in their "padi" fields, where the women are supposed todo most of the work, the men generally going hunting. The continualhum of conversation and loud laughter, with the noise made by thepigs and chickens under the house, the dogs and chickens in the house,and the beating of deep-toned gongs at times nearly drove me frantic,especially when I was writing.

They resembled a lot of small children and would beat their gongssimply to amuse themselves. Very often a Dayak, on returning fromhis work or a hunt in the jungle, would walk straight up to a largegong that was hanging up and hammer on it for a few minutes in a mostbusinesslike way, looking all the time as if it bored him. Then hewould walk away in much the same way as a man would leave the telephone(as if he had just got through some business). I suppose it soothedthem after their day's work, but it irritated me.

The Dayak dogs are fearful and wonderful animals, both as regardsshape and colour, and I could get very little sleep on account ofthe noise they made; yet the Dayaks seemed to sleep through it all.

One night I woke up after a particularly noisy fight, and saw whatappeared to me to be a dog sitting calmly by my bed with its backturned to me. Lifting my mosquito net, therefore, very quietly, I letdrive with my fist at it, putting all my pent-up indignation and angerfor sleepless nights into the blow. Alas! it was a very solid dog thatI struck against, being nothing more nor less than the side of one ofmy boxes, and I barked my knuckles rather badly. The laughter of theDayaks was loud and prolonged when Dubi translated the yarn to themnext day, and they remembered it long afterwards. Until I heard theroar of laughter that went up, the story had not struck me as beingso very amusing!

All around the house for some distance was a forest of tallfruit-trees. They had of course all been planted in times past bythe Dayaks' ancestors, and every tree had its owner, but they hadbecome mixed up with many beautiful wild tropic growths which hadsprung up between the trees. Some of these fruit-trees, such as the"durian," "rambutan," mango, mangosteen, "tamadac" or jackfruit,"lansat" and bananas, were familiar to me, but there were a greatnumber of fruits that I had never heard of before, and I got theirnames from my Dayak friends.[13]

Needless to say, I never before tasted so many fruits that wereentirely new to me, and most of them were ripe at the time of myvisit. The "durian" comes easily first. It is without doubt theking of all fruit in both the tropic and temperate zones, and ispopular alike with man and beast, the orang-utan being a greatculprit in robbing the Dayaks of their "durians." I never saw the"good" "durian" growing wild in Sarawak, but I tasted here a smallwild kind with an orange centre which made me violently sick. Nodescription of the "durian" taste can do it justice. But its smellis also past description. It is so bad that many people refuse totaste it. It is a very large and heavy fruit, covered with strong,sharp spines, and as it grows on a very tall tree, it is dangerousto walk underneath in the fruiting season when they are falling,accidents being common among the Dayaks through this cause. I myselfhad a narrow escape one windy day. I was sitting at the foot of oneof these trees eating some of the fallen fruit, when a large "durian"fell from above and buried itself in the mud not half a yard from me.

Danna, the second chief, would always leave one or two of the fruitfor me on a box close by my head where I slept, before he went offto his "padi "-planting early in the morning, so that I got quiteused to the bad smell.

The Dayak house was surrounded on three sides by a horrible swamp,the roads through which consisted of fallen trees laid end to end,or else of two or three thick poles, laid side by side, and kept inplace by being lashed here and there to two upright stakes, so thatI had to balance myself well or come to grief in the thick mud. TheDayak bridges, made chiefly of poles and bamboos, were in many casesawkward things to negotiate, and I had one or two rather nasty fallsfrom them. While the Dayak women and children never showed any fearof me in the house, whenever I met them out in the woods or jungle

they would run from me as if I were some kind of wild animal.

I saw several Dayak dances. The men put on their war-plumes and withshield and "parang" (mentioned above) twirl round and round and cutwith their "parangs" at an imaginary foe, the women all the timeaccompanying them with the beating of gongs. Dubi one night showedthem a Malay dance, which consisted of a sort of gliding motionand a graceful waving of the hands, quite the reverse of the Dayakdance. One night I noticed a general bustle in the house. The womenseemed greatly excited, and the men passed to and fro with their"parangs" and "sumpitans" (blowpipes), and cast anxious looks in mydirection as they passed me. They told Dubi they were going fishing;but it seemed strange that they should go fishing with these warlikeweapons, and I told Dubi so. He himself thought they were goinghead-hunting, and I felt sure of it, as they left only the old men,youths, women and children behind. I did not see them again till thefollowing evening, nor did I then see signs of any fish. I told Dubithat I thought it best that he should not ask them any questions, as itmight be awkward if they thought we suspected them. At the same time,I am bound to admit that there was no direct proof to show that theyhad been headhunting; and for this I was glad, as there was no causefor me to say anything to the Government about it, and so get my kindhosts into trouble. Some months later I read in a Singapore paper that"the Dayaks in this district," between Sibu and Kuching, were restlessand inclined to join form with the Dayaks at Kapit, who had sentDr. Hose a spear, signifying their defiance of the Sarawak Government.

One evening, when out looking for birds, Dubi and I came across twoDayaks, who were perched up in trees, waiting for wild pigs thatcame to feed on the fallen fruit, when they would spear them fromabove. They seemed rather annoyed with us for coming and frighteningthe pigs away, and that evening they told everyone that we were thecause of their not getting a pig. I rather scored them off, by tellingDubi in an angry voice to ask them what "the dickens" they meant bygetting up in trees and frightening all my birds away. This highlyamused all the other Dayaks, who laughed loud and long, and my twopig-hunting friends retired into the background discomfited. I myselfwent out one evening with a party of Dayaks after wild pig, and stayedfor two hours upon a platform in a tree while they climbed othertrees close by. However, no pigs turned up, although two "plandok"(mouse-deer) did, though I did not shoot them for fear of frighteningthe pigs away. I took my revolver with me, to the great amusement ofthe Dayaks, who, of course, had not seen one before, and ridiculed theidea of so small a weapon being able to kill a pig. The Dayaks toldme that there were plenty of bears here, but I never saw any myself inthis part of Borneo. They told me the bears were very fierce, and hadoften nearly killed some of their friends. The Dayak dogs are fearfulcowards, and I was told that they run away at the sight of a wild pig.

Animal life here was not plentiful, and quite the reverse of what Ihad seen in the forests of North Borneo, where it was very plentiful.

I noticed the prevalence of that horrible scurvy-like skin-diseaseamong several of the Dayaks. It was common in New Guinea amongthe Papuans, where it was termed "supuma." I cured two little Dayakchildren of intermittent fever by giving them quinine and Eno's fruitsalts. The result was that I was greatly troubled by demands on mylimited stock of medicines. One old man had been growing blind forthe last two years, and another was troubled with aches all over him,

and they would hardly believe me when I said that I could not curethem. They told Dubi that they thought that the white people whocould make such things as I possessed could do anything. So much ofmy property seemed to amuse and astonish them, that it was a treat toshow them such things as my looking-glass, hair-brush, socks, guns,umbrella, watch, etc. I showed them that child's trick of making thelid of my watch fly open, and they were delighted.

The Dayak women can hardly be considered good-looking. I saw one or twothat were rather pretty, but they were very young and unmarried. Dubifell madly in love with one of them and she with him, and when I leftthere were two broken hearts. Many of the little girls of about fiveand six years old would have been regular pictures if they had onlybeen cleaner. I made the discovery that some of my Dayak friends wereaddicted to the horrible habit of eating clay, and actually founda regular little digging in the side of a hill where they workedto get these lumps of reddish grey clay, and soon caught some ofthe old men eating it. They declared that they enjoyed it. All myempty tins (from tinned meats, etc.) were in great demand, and soto save jealousy I actually demoralized the Dayaks to the extent ofintroducing the raffling system among them. Great was the excitementevery evening when I raffled old tins and bottles. Dubi would handthe bits of paper and they would be a long time making up their mindswhich to take. One night Dubi overheard my Chinese cook telling someof the Dayaks that "the white tuan had no use for these tins himself,that is why he gives them to you."

This cook, whom I used to call Cookie, was a great nuisance to me,but he was the most amusing character I ever came across, and hewas the source of endless delight to the Dayaks, who enjoyed teasinghim and jokingly threatened to cut off his head, until he was almostparalyzed with fright and came and begged me to leave, as we shouldall have our heads cut off. After a week or two his courage returnedand I learned that when I was out of the house he would stand on hishead for the amusement of the women and children, though he was byno means a young man. He soon became quite popular with the women,who found him highly amusing, and who were always in fits of laughterwhenever he talked. In the evenings he sometimes joined a group ofDayak youths and would start to air his opinions. Then it was not longbefore they were all jeering and mimicking him, and poor old Cookiewould look very foolish and a sickly smile would spread over his yellowfeatures. Finally he would go off and sulk, and when I asked him whatthe matter was, he would reply, "Damn Dayak no wantee." Whenever Icalled out for Cookie, the whole house would resound with jeeringDayak cries of "Cookie, Cookie." He and Dubi were always quarrelling,and Cookie would work himself up into such a state of excitement thatthe place would be full of Dayak laughter, though the Dayak understoodnot a word of what they were talking about. In my later wanderingsin Borneo the quarrel between my two servants, Dayak and Chinaman,grew to such an extent that I feared it would end in murder.

The foregoing account, short as it is, will, I trust, give some idea ofwhat my long stay among head-hunting Dayaks was like. All things musthave an ending, however, and having finished my collecting in thisneighbourhood I said good-bye to my Dayak friends, with deep regret,and I think the sorrow was mutual. I know well that Dubi and his littleDayak sweetheart were almost heartbroken. The Dayaks begged me to staylonger, but I had already stayed longer than I had at first intended.

Old Usit, the chief, and his crew of Dayaks paddled me all the wayto Sibu. There is little to relate about the journey there, exceptthat the canoe leaked very badly and the Dayaks had to keep bailingher out. At night we tied the canoe up to a small wooden platformoutside a Malay house on the Rejang River, to await the change ofthe tide, and one of the Dayaks knocked at the door of the house sothat we could cook some food, but the Malays thought that we werehead-hunters, and there was great lamentation, and for some time theyrefused to open. While eating my food, with my legs dangling over theside of the wooden platform, I noticed a dark object that glistenedin the moonlight noiselessly swimming toward me, and I pulled up mylegs pretty quickly. It was a large crocodile, attracted, no doubt,by the smell of my dinner. The only objection I had was that it mighthave taken me for the dinner.

CHAPTER 14

Visit to the Birds'-nest Caves of Gomanton.

My stay in British North Borneo -- Visit to a Tobacco Estate (BatuPuteh) -- Start for the Birds'-nest Caves -- News of the LocalChief's Death -- Applicants for the Panglima-ship -- We Visit the lateChief's House-Widows in white -- The Hadji "who longed to be King" --Extraordinary Grove of Banyan-trees -- Pigs, Crocodiles and Monkeys --Astonishing Swimming Performance of a Monkey -- Water Birds Feedingon the Carcase of a Stag -- The Hadji and his Men pray at a NativeGrave-shrine -- An Elephant charges past us -- Arrival at the Caves-- The Entrance -- A Cave of enormous Height, description of theInterior -- Return to the Village -- Visit to the Upper Caves --Beautiful Climbing Plants -- We reach the Largest Cave of all:its Extreme Grandeur -- "White" Nests and "Black" Nests secured --Distinctions between the two kinds of Swallows by whom the Nests aremade -- Millions of small Bats: an Astonishing Sight -- Methods ofSecuring the Nests described -- Perilous Climbing Feats -- Reportof numerous Large Snakes -- Cave-coffins, and their (traditional)rich contents -- Dangers of the Descent -- All's well that ends well.

I had just returned down the river with Richardson fromTangkulap. Tangkulap is a journey of several days up the KinabatanganRiver in British North Borneo. Richardson was the magistrate for thisdistrict, and his rule extended over practically the whole of thisriver, Tangkulap being his headquarters. Only three or four white menhad ever been up the river as far as Tangkulap, it being a very lonelyspot in the midst of dense forests, with no other white man livinganywhere near. I had stayed with him for two months, making largenatural history collections and seeing a great deal of both nativeand animal life. We had then returned down the river in Richardson's"gobang" (canoe) to Batu Puteh, a large tobacco estate, and theonly one on this river. Here we were the guests of Paul Brietag, themanager, a most hospitable German. He and his three German, French,and Dutch assistants were the only other white men on the whole ofthis great river.

While here, Richardson and I determined to visit the wonderfulGomanton birds'-nest caves, from which great quantities of ediblebirds' nests are annually taken. Very few Europeans had ever visitedthem, though they are considered among the wonders of the world.

We left Batu Puteh in Richardson's canoe early one morning, and,although we had a strong stream with us going down, we did not reachBilit till evening. Bilit is a large village made up of Malays,Orang Sungei, and Sulus. Quite a crowd met us on our arrival, andthey seemed not a little excited. It appeared that their late Panglima(chief), who was also a Hadji, had been on a second voyage to Mecca,and they had just heard that he had died on his way back. "That wasquite right," they said; "his time had come, and, besides, it hadbeen foretold that he would die if he tried to go to Mecca again."

Two men were most anxious to gain favour with Richardson -- viz., thedead man's son and another Hadji, who was the richest man in Bilit,and who had a large share in the Gomanton caves. The reason was thatRichardson had the power to appoint whom he liked as the new Panglima,provided, of course, that the man was of some standing and fairlypopular. Richardson sent for one of the most influential men in thevillage to come and talk the matter over, but he lived on the otherside of the river, and, it being late, they said he dared not crossin his small "gobang," as the crocodiles are very bad indeed here,and at night they often help themselves to a man out of his canoe. Wewent to the late Panglima's house and had a chat, but nothing was saidabout the new Panglima. I caught sight of one of the widows swathed inwhite, going through all sorts of contortions by way of mourning forher late husband. We found that the people were going to the caves intwo or three days to collect the black nests. The white nests had beencollected earlier in the year, but the influential Hadji "who wouldbe king" offered to go with us on the morrow and start work earlierthan he at first intended if his dreams were favourable, and thuswe should be able to see them at work collecting the nests. Here wasluck both for ourselves and the Hadji: it meant a step in his hopesof the much-desired Panglima-ship by thus gaining favour with themagistrate over his younger rival. He was a tall, haughty-looking man,with an orange-coloured turban, worn only by Hadjis, and the peopleseemed to stand in great awe of him and addressed him as "Tuan" or"Tuan Hadji," the word "Tuan" being usually used only when addressingEuropeans like ourselves; still, his house in which we spent the nightwas little better than a pigsty, although he was a very wealthy man.

The next morning we were off before sunrise. After leaving thevillage we had a walk of about an hour and a half over a very steephill through luxuriant, tall forest, and on the other side came to asmall river, the Menungal, on the banks of which was a shed full of"gobangs" (canoes) which were speedily launched, we both getting intothe leading one. We were followed by three others, in one of which wasthe Hadji. Most of the way was through fine forest, the trees archingoverhead to shade us from the hot sun, the only exception being whenwe passed through a stretch of swamps, with low, tangled growth, whenthe river broadened out, but in the shady forest it was delightful,gliding along to the music of the even dip of the paddles.

The most striking feature about the forest on this Menungal Riverwas the extraordinary growth of a species of banyan trees (FICUSsp.). I have seen many curious stilted trees of this FICUS family invarious tropical countries I have visited, but these I think were morecurious than any I had ever seen. One hardly knew where they began andwhere they ended, for they all seemed joined together, and roots andbranches seemed one and the same thing. It was the acme of vegetableconfusion. Even the river could not stop their progress, and we were

constantly gliding between their roots and branches. The growth offerns, orchids and parasites on the branches and roots of these treeswas luxuriant to a degree and formed veritable hanging gardens.

On these Bornean rivers one is constantly seeing pigs, crocodiles andmonkeys, but I noticed on this river an abundance of a monkey whichone seldom sees on the large Kinabatangan River. I refer to the verycurious proboscis or long-nosed monkey (NASALIS LARVATUS). Theseanimals often sat still overhead and stared down at us in the mostcontemptuous and indifferent manner, and they looked so human and yetso comical with their enormous red noses that I found myself laughingaloud, our scullers doing the same, till the monkeys actually grinnedwith indignation. They axe large monkeys with long tails, and arebeautifully marked with various shades of grey and brown, and theirlarge, fleshy, red noses give them an extraordinary appearance.

One of them did a performance that astonished me. We saw a group ofthem on a branch over the river about forty yards ahead of us, whenone of them jumped into the middle of the river and coolly swam to ahanging creeper up which it climbed, none the worse for its voluntarybath. This was the only time that I had ever seen a monkey swim, butthe natives assured me that these monkeys are very good swimmers. Itstruck me as being a very risky performance, as this river was fullof crocodiles.

I saw on this river a wonderful orchid growing on large trees. Thiswas a GRAMMATOPHYLLUM with bulbs some times over eight feet inlength. The length of the name is certainly suitable for so largean orchid. I saw plenty of water-birds, including white egrets anda long-necked diver which is called the "snake-bird," owing to itslong neck projecting lout of the water and thus greatly resembling asnake. I shot several of each kind of bird, plucking the fine plumesfrom the backs of the egrets. We ate some of the divers that eveningand found them first-class food, tasting much like goose. We later inthe day disturbed a whole colony of these water-birds feeding on thecarcase of a large stag in the river, and the smell was very strongfor some distance. I did not attempt to shoot any more mock geesetill we had put a good many miles between ourselves and the deadstag. We passed several canoes slowly wending their way to the eaves,the people taking it easy and camping on the banks and fishing. Theydried the fish on the roofs of their thatched canoes. Some of thesepeople had very curious rattan pyramid-shaped hats gaily ornamentedwith strips of bright-coloured cloth.

Toward evening the river got exceedingly narrow, and fallen treesobstructed our way, so that we had sometimes to lie flat on our backsto pass under them, and at other times we had to get out while ourcanoe was hauled over the mud at the side.

Just before we reached our destination for the night, we came to aspot where the bank was hung with bits of coloured cloth and calicofastened to sticks, I also noticed some bananas and dried fish tied tothe sticks. This signified that there was a native burial ground closeby, and all the canoes were stopped, the scullers putting their paddlesdown, while the Hadji and all his men proceeded to wash their facesin the river. This they did to ensure success in their nest-collecting.

We stayed the night in one of two raised half-thatched huts used onlyby the natives in the collecting seasons, a ladder from the river

leading into them. It was almost dark when we arrived, and hardly werewe under shelter when rain came down in torrents. It poured all night,and when we started off on foot at sunrise the next morning we foundthe track in the forest a regular quagmire; in places we waded throughmud up to our knees. As we scrambled and floundered through the mudat our best pace we heard a great crashing noise just in front of us,and the air resounded with cries of "Gajah, gajah!" (elephant). I wasjust in time to see a large elephant tear by. It literally seemed tofly, and knocked down small trees as if they were grass. It seemedgreatly frightened, and made a sort of coughing noise. It went by soquickly that I was unable to see whether it had tusks or not.

After about three hours' hard tramping, I caught sight of a highmass of white limestone gleaming through the trees. It made a prettypicture in the early morning, the white rock peeping out of luxuriantcreepers and foliage. It rises very abruptly from the surroundingforest, and at a distance looked quite inaccessible to a climber.

We waded through a stream of clear water, washing the horrible forestmud from off us, and soon found ourselves in a most picturesquevillage at the very base of the rock. We disturbed quite a crowd ofnative girls bathing in a spring, and they seemed very much alarmedand surprised at seeing two Europeans suddenly turn the corner. Outof season I don't believe any one lives in this village except somewatchers at the mouths of the eaves to guard against thieves. TheHadji gave us a rough hut with a flooring of split bamboo and kept usprovided with chickens. All this no doubt was in his estimation partof the necessary steps to securing that much-desired Panglima-ship.

The two days we were here, people kept flocking into the village,most of the men carrying long steel-pointed spears, in many casesbeautifully mounted with engraved silver: others carried long "parangs"and "krises" in rough wooden sheaths, but the handles were often ofcarved ivory and silver.

After some breakfast we started off to see the near lower cave, whichwas one of the smaller ones. We followed a very pretty ferny trackby the side of a rocky stream for a short distance, the forest beingpartially cleared and open, with large boulders scattered around. Thesky overhead was thick with swallows, in fact one could almost saythe air was black with them. These of course were the birds that makethe nests. The mouth of the cave partly prepared me for what I was tosee. I had expected a small entrance, but here it was, I should say,sixty feet in height and of great width, the entrance being partlyoverhung with a curtain of luxuriant creepers. The smell of guanohad been strong before, but here it was overpowering.

Extending inside the cave for about one hundred yards was a smallvillage of native huts used chiefly by the guards or watchers ofthese caves. Compared with the vastness of the interior of the cave-- I believe about four hundred and eighty feet in height -- onecould almost imagine that one was looking at the small model of avillage. A small stream ran out of a large hill of guano, and if youleft the track you sank over your knees in guano. The vastness of theinterior of this cave impressed me beyond words. It was stupendous,and to describe it properly would take a better pen than mine. Onecould actually see the very roof overhead, as there were two orthree openings near the top (reminding one of windows high up ina cathedral) through which broad shafts of light forced their way,

making some old hanging rattan ladders high up appear like silveryspider webs. Of course there were recesses overhead where the lightcould not penetrate, and these were the homes of millions of smallbats, of which more presently. As for the birds themselves, thiswas one of their nesting seasons, and the cave was full of myriadsof them. The twittering they made resembled the whisperings of amultitude. The majority of them kept near the roof, and as theyflew to and fro through the shafts of light they presented a mostcurious effect and looked like swarms of gnats; lower down theyresembled silvery butterflies. Where the light shone on the rockywalls and roofs one could distinguish masses upon masses of littlesilver black specks. These were their nests, as this was a black-nestcave. Somewhere below in the bowels of the earth rumbled an undergroundriver with a noise like distant thunder. This cavernous roar far belowand the twittering whisper of the swallows far overhead, combined toadd much to the mysteriousness of these wonderful caves.

On the ground in the guano I picked up several eggs, unbroken. Howthey could fall that distance and yet not get smashed is hard tounderstand, unless it is that they fell in the soft guano on theirends. We were told that when a man fell from the top he was smashedliterally into jelly. I also picked up a few birds which had beenstunned when flying against the rocks. This saved me from shooting any.

Spread out on the ground in the cave and also drying outside, raisedfrom the ground on stakes, were coil after coil of rattan ropes andladders used for collecting the nests. These always have to be neweach season, and are first carefully tested. The ladders are madeof well twisted strands of rattan with steps of strong, hard wood,generally "bilian."

On our return to the village we bathed in a shady stream of clearwater, the banks of which I noted were composed chiefly of guano. Inthe afternoon we started off in search of the upper eaves. Aftera short, stiff climb amid natural rockeries of jagged limestone,we passed under a rock archway or bridge, under which were perchedfrail-looking raised native huts of the watchers. As we stood underthis curious archway we looked down a precipice on our left. It wasvery steep at our feet, but from the far side it took the form of aslanting shaft, which terminated in a little window or inlet into thelower cave we had visited in the morning. In our ascent we had to climbup very rough, steep ladders fastened against the rocky ledges. Therocks were in many places gay with variegated plants, the most notablebeing a very pretty-leafed begonia, covered with pink and silver spots,the spots being half pink, half white. The natives with us seemed toenjoy eating these leaves; they certainly looked tempting enough.

Another fine plant growing among these rocks was a climbing POTHOS,with very dark green leaves, ornamented with a silver band acrosseach leaf, but the finest of all was a fine velvet-leafed climber,veined with crimson, pink, or white (CISSUS sp.).

We at length came to the entrance of a long chain of eaves, throughwhich we passed, going down a very steep grade, and our guides had tocarry lights. After a climb down some steep rocks in semi-darkness,we at length found ourselves in the largest cave of all, supposed tobe about five hundred and sixty feet in height.[14] It, too, had two orthree natural windows, through which the light penetrated. One of themwas on the top, in the very centre of the cave, and from down below

it looked like a distant star. This opening was on the very summit ofthe Gomanton rock. This cave greatly resembled the smaller one I havealready described, except that it was of much grander dimensions. As inthe first cave, one could hear the roar of an underground torrent, andthe swallows seemed even more numerous. On the rocky walls I noticedplenty of large spiders and a curious insect, with a long body andlong, thin legs, which ran very fast, and whose bite we were toldwas very poisonous.

On the way back, when passing through some very low caves, the Hadjigot some of his men to knock down for me a few of the white nests fromthe sides of the cave with long poles, and in another cave they got mesome black nests. The difference between these white and black nestsis this: they are made by two different kinds of swallows. The whitenest is made by a very small bird, but the bird that builds the blacknest is twice the size of the other. The white nest looks somethinglike pure white gelatine, and is very clean, and has no feathersin it. The black nest, on the contrary, is plentifully coated withfeathers, and it is, in consequence, not worth nearly as much as thewhite nest. The nests are made from the saliva of the birds. Bothare very plain coloured birds; an ordinary swallow is brilliant incomparison. This is unusual in a country so full of brilliant-plumagedbirds as Borneo is; but, as they spend most of their lives in thedepths of these sombre caves, I suppose it is only natural that theirplumage should be obscure and plain. These birds'-nest caves are foundall over Borneo and the Malay Peninsula, and also in Java and otherparts of the Malay archipelago, but these are by far the largest. Therevenue from these caves alone brings the Government a very largesum. By far the greatest number of these nests are sent to China,where birds'-nest soup is an expensive luxury. The natives of Borneodo not eat them. For myself, I found the soup rather tasteless.

We were told that if they missed one season's nest collecting, mostof the birds would forsake these caves, possibly because there wouldbe so little room for them to build again. I learned that they buildand lay four times a year, but I think that they meant that boththe black and the white-nest birds lay twice each. The white kindbuild their first nests about March, and the black kind in May, and,as these nests are all collected before they have time to hatch theireggs, there are no young birds till later in the year, when the nestsare not disturbed, but the old nests are collected with the new onesthe following year. If the guano could be easily transported to thecoast it would be a paying proposition, but the Government fears thatit might frighten the birds away.

About dusk that evening after we had returned to our hut, I heard anoise like the whistling of the wind, and, going outside, I saw a trulywonderful sight, in fact a sight that filled me with amazement. Themillions of small bats which share these caves with the birds wereissuing forth for the night from the small hole I spoke about on thevery top of the rock leading into the large cave, but what a sight itwas! As far as the eye could see they stretched in one even unbrokencolumn across the sky. They issued from the cave in a compact massand preserved the same even formation till they disappeared in the fardistance. As far as I could see there were no stragglers. They ratherresembled a thick line of smoke coming out of the funnel of a steamer,with this exception that they kept the same thick line till they wentout of sight. The most curious thing about it was that the thick linetwisted and wriggled across the sky for all the world like a giant

snake, as if it were blown about by gusts of wind, of which, however,there was none. Even with these strange manoeuvres the bats kept thesame unbroken solid formation. They were still coming forth in the samemanner till darkness set in, and then I could only hear the beatingof myriads of wings like the sighing of the wind in the tree-tops.

They return in early morning in much the same fashion. I heard thatthe swallows usually did the same thing, only the other way about;when the bats came out, the swallows entered the eaves, and when thebats went in, the swallows came out, but it being now their nestingseason, they went in and out of the eaves irregularly all day, butI was quite satisfied to see the bats go through the performance,as it was one of the most wonderful sights I have ever seen.

We had been told that it would be three or four more days before thecollecting would take place, and also that they had to wait for agood omen in the shape of a good dream coming to one of the chiefowners of the caves. Our pleasure was great, therefore, when theHadji and some of his followers paid us a visit that night and toldus that work should start in the largest cave the next morning forour benefit. That was good news, indeed, as Richardson could not waitmore than another day. It was another good move for the Hadji and hisPanglima-ship, and I told Richardson he ought to give it him forthwith.

The next morning we climbed to the top of the rock. It was hardwork climbing over the brittle rocks and up perpendicular andshaky ladders. On reaching the summit we got a splendid view of thesurrounding country, and could plainly see the distant sea; but allelse was thick, billowy forest, dotted at long intervals with limestoneridges, also covered with forest. Here we found the hole on the topof the large cave, and stretching across it were two long, thick"bilian" logs, to which the natives were now fastening their longrattan ladders before descending them to collect the nests. We creptalong the logs and listened to the everlasting twittering far below;but, although we could see nothing but pitchy darkness, the thoughtof what was below made me soon crawl back with a very shaky feelingin my legs

We then descended again till we came to the mouth of a curious cave,which was practically a dark chasm at our feet. We climbed downinto the depths on a straight, swaying ladder, which required a goodgrip, and then, after a climb over slanting, slippery rocks, we foundourselves in the large cave, on a sort of ledge, within perhaps sixtyfeet of the roof. We were told that we were the first Europeans whohad ever descended on to this ledge. From here we watched the nativescollecting the nests. In a short account of this description it isimpossible for me to detail all the wonderful methods the nativeshad for collecting the nests, but the chief method was by descendingrattan ladders, which were let down through the hole on the top ofthe cave. It made one quite giddy even to watch the men descendingthese frail swaying ladders with over five hundred feet of spacebelow them. The man on the nearest ladder had a long rattan ropeattached low down to his ladder, with a kind of wooden anchor atthe end of it. At the second attempt he succeeded with a wonderfulthrow in getting the anchor to stick in the soft guano on the edgeof the slanting ledge where we were. It was then seized by severalmen waiting there; by these it was hauled up until they were enabledto catch hold of the end of the ladder, which they dragged higher andhigher up the steep, slanting rocks we had come down by. This in time

brought the flexible ladder, at least the part on which the man was,level with the roof, and he, lying on his back on the thin ladder,pulled the nests off the rocky roof, putting them into a large rattanbasket fastened about his body.

We saw many other methods they have of collecting these nests by theaid of long bamboo poles and rattan ropes, up which they climbed todizzy heights.

These eaves, we were told, were full of very large harmless snakes,but we did not come across them. If I had had a good head and plentyof skill and pluck as a climber, I might have come away a wealthy man,as the Hadji told us that in a sort of side cave high up in the largecave were the coffins of the men that first discovered these caves,and with them were large jars of gold and jewels, but no one daredtouch them, as they said it would be certain death to the man who didso. A man once did take some, but a few days later was taken violentlyill and so had them put back and thus recovered. It was not for anyscruples of this kind that I declined the Hadji's offer to help myselfwhen he pointed out to me the spot where they were, but I think hemust have guessed that I would not have trusted myself on one of thosefrail swaying ladders with over five hundred feet of space beneath me.

On the way back we scrambled up to a small cave where there werenumerous carved coffins and bones which belonged to some of the formerowners of the caves, but alas! no jars of gold; possibly poor men, theydid not realize good prices. We returned down the rocks a differentway, which made Richardson indulge in some hearty language at theHadji's expense, who must have had fears that the Panglima-ship wasat the last moment slipping away from him. It certainly was awkwardand dangerous work climbing down the steep precipices, and we couldnever have done it, but that the rocks were quite honeycombed withsmall holes which enabled us to get a good hold for our hands.

That night was a busy one for me, skinning my numerous birds andblowing the eggs by a dim light to the accompaniment of Richardson'ssnores, and I did not get to bed till 2 a.m. We were up again at 4a.m. for the return journey. But I had seen one of the most wonderfulsights in the world, and to me it seemed extraordinary that until Icame to Borneo I had never even heard of the Gomanton eaves. Someday, perhaps within our time, they will become widely advertised,and swarms of noisy tourists will come over in airships from Londonand New York, but there will be one thing lacking -- all romancewill have gone from these lonely wilds and forests, and that is thechief thing. The Hadji returned with us to Bilit, and got his desire,the Panglima-ship, and well he deserved it.

NOTES

[1] -- C is pronounced as Th.: E.G., "Cawa" -- "Thawa."

[2] -- Nabuna, pron. Nambuna.

[3] -- Panes of glass in a FIJIAN house are very unusual, but thishouse, being Government-built, was European. I can only recall oneother instance, that of Ratu Kandavu Levu on his small island ofBau, and then it was only in the native house where he entertainedEuropean guests.

[4] -- These circumstances were a matter of common knowledge,at the time of my visit, all over Fiji. On the other hand it mustbe remembered that Ratu Lala did not think he was doing any harm,for the woman, having done wrong, required punishing, and naturallySouth Sea Island ideas of punishment, inherited from past generations,differ radically from those of Europeans.

[5] -- PTYCHOSPERMA sp.

[6] -- PRITCHARDIA PACIFICA.

[7] -- ELATERIDAE

[8] -- Pron.: longa-longa.

[9] -- Pronounced "Samothe."

[10] -- "b" pronounced "mb."

[11] -- R. Shelford's Report.

[12] -- From a Singapore Paper.

[13] -- Some of these names that I got were "kudong" "blimbing,""mawang," "sima" "lakat," "kamayan," "nika," "esu," "kubal," "padalai"and "rambai."

[14] -- These were the heights given me by the Malays.

End of Project Gutenberg's Wanderings Among South Sea Savages by Walker